


Rekindled

by Cascadena



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Zelda - Fandom
Genre: Adventure, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Calamity, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29146311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cascadena/pseuds/Cascadena
Summary: Post-BotW. Zelink. Hyrule now turns to an exhausted Princess Zelda to pick up the fragments of the fallen kingdom. Link, who is still piecing together his own past and traumas from his own journey, realizes that he has to be the one to help Zelda back on her feet. Together, they travel the land to begin the rebuilding process, and uncover a new, mysterious threat along the way...[Mild spoiler warning for a few Age of Calamity story details tied into the plot. Speculation on how Botw and its sequel will connect is based on the 2019 teaser trailer.]
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hello! Thank you for reading! This is my first fanfic in quite a long time and my first dive into the BotW World. This is also the longest fanfic I've ever written at around 44K words. I hope you enjoy! As always, comments, reviews, and feedback are always appreciated.
> 
> Additionally, this fic was written in late 2020/early 2021 (in the midst of a Global Pandemic), so we knew little about the sequel to Breath of the Wild at this time of writing. Many of the subplot ideas I had for this were based on personal theories and speculation based on the 2019 Teaser Trailer for the sequel... So if you are reading this in the future after the sequel releases, and things seem incorrect or off to the canon... that is why lol.
> 
> This fic also references some events/ideas from Age of Calamity as well, so mild spoiler warning for that game if you have yet to play!
> 
> POTENTIAL WARNINGS: Contains some violence/action scenes and mild depictions of wounds/blood. Also contains (of-age) alcohol consumption. Also some kissing scenes...
> 
> Anyways, on to the story!
> 
> ~Missa
> 
> DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fanfiction, and is not associated with or endorsed by Nintendo. The story is based on the characters and world found in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with characterizations based on the author's personal interpretation and construction. The work has been created solely for entertainment purposes, and the author does not seek any compensation from this work. This work should not be copied or redistributed in any format.

# PROLOGUE

_Link_

The clouds of malice curling above me dissipated upon the Princess’s eradication of Ganon, leaving behind an untainted sky that shone with a more vivid blue than I had seen since awakening from my slumber. Rising from where I’d landed with my paraglider after sending the final ancient arrow right into Ganon’s core, I rubbed a particularly sore spot on my right shoulder where Calamity Ganon managed to land a more severe blow with an ancient blade in our duel at Hyrule Castle. The bleeding had slowed from my adrenaline rush but it would only hold off the pain for so long. I gripped my arm as I cautiously approached the girl whose voice I had only heard in my mind since my revival. Though we’d just destroyed the malicious Calamity Ganon, my heart still beat quickly in anticipation of the reunion with the beautiful girl from my memories.

The Princess lowered her arm, facing away from me as she took a slow, deep breath. I flinched when she began speaking. Her soft voice was just audible over the whips of wind as the last of the malice storm cleared around us.

“I’ve been keeping watch over you all this time… I’ve witnessed your struggles to return to us as well as your trials in battle. I always thought—no, I always believed—that you would find a way to defeat Ganon.” She paused for a moment as she seemed to consider her next words. “I… never lost faith in you over these many years,” she said. 

Finally, she turned. A strangely familiar warmth pulsed in my chest as she faced me for the first time since I died in her arms a hundred years ago. Her small smile was familiar to my memories, yet it still filled my chest with warmth. I wondered how in the world I’d ever been able to keep my focus on the demands of my duty to protect her in the past. 

“Thank you, Link...the hero of Hyrule.” Her expression softened. I nodded and swallowed a smile, unable to speak as hot tears welled in my eyes. Zelda seemed to notice, and a weight visibly lifted from her shoulders as she clasped her hands in front of her. “May I ask… Do you really remember me?”

“Yes, Your Highness, I do,” I managed to reply, but my voice cracked as a tear escaped down my cheek. Zelda smiled as she clasped her hands over her face as she suppressed a cry.

“We’ve finally done it,” she breathed, and then her balance shook. 

Within a second of seeing her waver, I leapt forward, just in time to catch her in my arms as her legs gave out beneath her. I cushioned her as the weight pulled us both to our knees. I wondered if holding Hyrule’s Princess so close was proper for her Appointed Knight. However, when I felt her arms tighten a little in gratitude around my shoulders, I knew it was acceptable in this circumstance. “Even now, you protect me from any harm when it threatens me,” she said into my shoulder. 

A smile dared to cross my face, until I realized my wound had begun to bleed onto the back of her dress. I inhaled sharply as the pain began to throb. The adrenaline was wearing off for both of us.

“Link!”

My head flipped to the right towards the source of the voice. A covered wagon charged towards us from the East. I instinctively reached to the hilt of the Master Sword at my shoulder but relaxed when I saw a familiar girl hop out and run ahead of the caravan to meet us.

It was Paya. The Sheikah had come to help us.

* * *

# CHAPTER 1 - Ending a Journey

_Link_

Everything that happened next was a blur. The Sheikah caravan halted and Dorian and Cado jumped out to assist Zelda into the wagon. A million pains began pulsing through my body.

“M-Master Link… We left as soon as we heard the rumble of Vah Ruta’s laser,” said Paya. She took one look at my arm before she fetched a makeshift bandage from the wagon and handed me a water skin. “Please, let us assist you…”

We began the journey back to Kakariko Village, where the Sheikah could help us. I insisted on riding Epona, my horse, to give Zelda more space in the wagon, as the exhausted Princess had passed out shortly after being helped inside. Epona was a tough girl, and though she was exhausted from the battle with Ganon, I knew she could make it to Kakariko after Paya fed her a hearty mix of swift and endura carrots.

Epona followed the wagon on a lead as we made our way towards the Dueling Peaks. Hyrule seemed so peaceful as usual, and I briefly wondered if any of the civilians were even aware yet that the calamity had finally been destroyed. Surely, the Sheikah weren’t the only ones to witness the Divine Beast lasers fire. 

I glanced into the open flap on the backside of the wagon and could see Princess Zelda sleeping in a shaft of sunlight. Her mouth hung open as she curled up on the cushion inside. After a hundred years of fighting off Ganon, her nap was well deserved. Looking upon the exhausted Princess in her dirtied, bloodied prayer gown, I felt a wave of guilt pass through my gut and my jaw clenched. If I hadn’t fallen a hundred years ago and just slayed Ganon back then, she would not have had to suffer and fight for so many years. 

Her pain was a result of my own failure.

I knew I would have to apologize to her at some point. But how could one possibly apologize for a hundred years of suffering and a fallen kingdom? My thoughts began to drift as my consciousness faded away with the rhythmic thud of Epona’s trotting. The shadows of moblins, guardians, and lynels flashed through my mind in a hazy dream as my brain processed all I’d just endured. I had fallen asleep on horseback a few times previously, but never for very long stretches of time. It was a miracle that I didn’t fall off Epona and drown in the river right there. 

The golden light of the sunset fell over the mountaintops surrounding Kakariko Village, casting the village in shadow so that only the warm illuminance of the resident’s windows brought light into the streets. When our caravan arrived in front of Impa’s house. I jolted awake as Dorian’s small children called my name. A few other curious villagers crowded around before Dorian shooed them away. 

Zelda awakened, and I was grateful that the evening light would prevent us from drawing much more attention from the villagers as we ascended the steps to the elder’s home under the cover of darkness. Only as I climbed the steps did I begin to realize how exhausted my body felt: navigating through the rubble of Hyrule Castle, defeating Calamity Ganon, and then riding all the way back to Kakariko all in the same day had done a number on me. However, I couldn’t complain, because the girl stepping up next to me had just fought off the ultimate demon for a hundred years straight.

We had not even reached the top of the stairs when the doors to the house flew open. Zelda gasped from beside me, faltering before she whispered. “...Impa?”

Impa grinned down on us. “It has been a long time, Your Highness.”

-

Before she began preparing food, Paya fetched a red potion from Impa’s cabinet for me. I felt the pain in my arm and head dull considerably with the first sip. I then went to sit down with Princess Zelda where she kneeled beside Impa’s cushion. We briefly made eye contact and she smiled, though I could see fatigue clouding in her emerald green irises. I offered a crooked grin of my own in return. A flash of surprise crossed her face, though she said nothing of it.

“You look like you haven’t aged a day,” said Impa as she placed a hand on Zelda’s own. “Some of us aren’t so lucky, unfortunately… At least Link has all those scars to prove he battled in the calamity, even if his memory is still imperfect.”

I almost choked on my potion with Impa’s joke. Robbie must have talked with Impa about how he confirmed my identity. 

Zelda glanced over at me with a raised eyebrow before she shook her head. “I was locked in a state of stasis. Even now, I don’t fully understand how everything has changed since I last walked through Hyrule.”

Impa chuckled softly then nodded. “I am sure it will take quite a while for you to process everything that has come to pass.”

Zelda clasped her hands on her knees in front of her. Her white dress, though stained from the events a hundred years ago, still fell around her in graceful, unwrinkled folds. “We… we must immediately plan the next course of action,” said Zelda.

“Indeed,” said Impa, shifting to lean forward in her seat. She put her hands on her knees and leaned forwards. “Hyrule looks to you, Your Highness.”

“Well, yes…” Zelda’s eyes flickered wide for a moment as if it had only now occurred to her that the leadership of the kingdom now fell solely on her shoulders alone. I frowned as the memory—though still a bit broken in my head—came back to me. A hundred years ago, we’d fled the castle in a hurry when the Guardians corrupted around us. Zelda had not seen her father die in the castle that day, but I knew of his fate from speaking with his spirit. 

She may have not had any time to even consider his death at all, until now.

“Impa… tell me, as my Royal Advisor, what do you think we should do?” Zelda asked in a low voice. Her hands fidgeted with the folds of her skirt.

Impa tightened her lips. “I believe we should start with the restoring of the castle. It is the heart of Hyrule Kingdom.”

Zelda swallowed and looked down at her hands. “Right, the castle…”

“There are monsters everywhere inside,” I said. Zelda glanced at me when I spoke. “We will need to get them out first. I also think there are some things inside that could possibly be salvaged.”

A hint of hope glimmered in Zelda’s eyes but it was lost a moment later. “Who will help us do this? The entire army is gone. The last of our soldiers fell in the battle at Akkala Citadel.” She closed her eyes and clenched her fists. “We could do nothing to save a single soul.”

“The Sheikah have always served the Royal Family,” said Impa. “I will see to it that we do everything we can to assist. Perhaps you can ask the other races of the kingdom for help too.”

I could tell Zelda’s mind raced as her fists clenched the fabric of her dress. “Perhaps. Thank you, Impa.”

“I am sure they will be willing to help,” said Impa. Zelda nodded but fell quiet. 

A few minutes later, Paya placed a tray of steamed vegetable skewers in front of us. My mouth watered at the sight of the colorful vegetables. I hadn’t eaten since I swiped some raw mushrooms from a moblin’s hoard in the castle’s ruined dining hall. Zelda reached out to take one of the skewers, and I suddenly remembered something.

“Eat slowly,” I said before she even touched the hearty radish on the skewer. She sent me a questioning gaze. I blushed when I realized I’d given an order to Her Highness. I needed to clarify. “Uhm… when I woke up after a hundred years, my stomach rejected food for a few days.”

Zelda nodded, now understanding, and narrowed her attention as she delicately pulled off the radish on the end of the spear. I dug into my own skewer without much regard for table manners, savoring the sustenance while Paya and Impa watched me, a hint of amusement evident on their faces. Apparently, I used to be a slightly more... _refined_ eater when I served in the castle. After only a few bites, Zelda put a hand on her abdomen and offered the rest of her skewer to me. My hunch was right—her body was still fragile from her long stay in stasis.

Paya served the rest of the meal to us: meat, rice, and fortified pumpkin pie for dessert. I ravenously enjoyed the meal, much to Paya and Impa’s entertainment—but Zelda only took a small taste of each dish to be polite before she said she felt too nauseated to continue. After the meal, I cleaned my hands and asked Paya if I could assist her in washing anything, which naturally sent her into a flustered frenzy as she declined any help whatsoever from me or the Princess. 

-

I found Zelda outside on the back porch later that evening, leaning against the wooden guardrail, her head inclined up to the starry sky. Her dress, though stained with the blemishes of battle, still reflected the silver light of the moon. The trickle of the nearby waterfall and stream broke the silence of the night. She glanced over her shoulder when she heard me approach. “May I join you, Your Highness?” I asked. 

She nodded. I stepped up beside her and leaned against the railing. “Are you feeling alright?” I asked.

She bobbed her shoulders and I knew that probably meant ‘no’ but she would not admit it. “I am…” She paused, considering her words, before continuing. “I am worried… the races of Hyrule will be angry at me as I am responsible alone for the state of the Kingdom. I owe them all an immense apology for failing them, and I do not think I can ever repay them for it.”

My heart sank with hers. I leaned an elbow on the railing. “I believe the ones who helped me cleanse the Divine Beasts would each take up the role of becoming Champions—leaders to assist in leading a rebuilding effort—if you wish to designate them.”

Zelda tightened her lips. “It is because of me that our old Champion friends, their greatest warriors, perished in battle.”

“That was because Ganon corrupted the Divine Beasts before we even knew what happened,” I reminded her. “Besides, they will all warmly welcome you with the news of Calamity Ganon’s defeat. That is good news for all.”

Zelda nodded and looked down at her folded hands. A frog jumped into the water below us with a splash. A quiet beat passed before Zelda spoke again. “Thank you for the prompt warning about eating earlier,” said Zelda. “I suspect I would have become quite ill had I forced too much food on myself so soon after coming out of many years of stasis. I’m sorry you had to experience that.”

“You’re welcome, Your Highness,” I said. “I wouldn’t want you to feel sick either. Fighting Ganon was more than enough pain for one day, let alone a hundred years.”

Zelda cracked a small smile. “You know, we never spoke nearly this frequently a hundred years ago. You used to be so quiet. I always wished I had more opportunities to talk with you like this.”

I straightened up a bit and stared at Zelda as I processed this information. _Had my personality really shifted that much since my memory reconstruction?_

_If so… What would she think of me now? How would she feel about me?_

Zelda drummed her fingers on the guardrail as she continued. “I do wonder how we will both fit into this world now. We have not aged like those around us who are left that we knew before the calamity.” She shook her head. “I’m still processing the drastic difference of Impa’s age, to be honest. When I first saw Paya, I thought she was Impa because she has such a striking resemblance. But no, she is her _granddaughter_.”

I nodded. “It’s been strange meeting people who knew me from before, though I didn’t remember most of them at first.”

Our conversation was interrupted by the shriek of one of the villagers in the plaza behind us, followed by the cry of a bokoblin. 

Instinctively, I grabbed Zelda’s hand led her into the safety of Impa’s house. I pushed through the front doors to view the commotion in the village below. I halted when I saw that Dorian and Cado, Impa’s guards, had already taken care of the stray bokoblin and its body disappeared into thin air.

Several villagers gathered in the area below, nervously discussing the monster. Zelda appeared beside me and I heard her exhale heavily in stress. One of the villagers noticed her and called up at us. “It’s the Princess!”

All of the Sheikah turned their heads to look up at us. A few cheered in delight as the crowd migrated towards the base of the stairs. Several people began yelling things at us at once.

“Princess!”

“Did you finally defeat the Calamity?”

“Are you really Princess Zelda?”

“Why are there still monsters attacking us?”

“What was that giant laser?”

“Will you defeat all the monsters around the village too?”

Zelda held a hand to her chin and took a step back as the villagers yelled all of their questions at her. Dorian and Cado waved their arms in an attempt to quiet down the excited villagers.

“Enough.”

Impa’s voice boomed over the village and the crowd fell silent. I glanced over to find Impa at the top of the stairs. She crossed her arms and frowned down at her villagers. 

Zelda cleared her throat and I could see her hand shaking as she lowered them. “I assure you I will see to the concerns you have,” she called down to the crowd. “Please know that Calamity Ganon is defeated, and Hyrule will rise from the ashes.”

Several of the Sheikah cheered upon the news of Calamity Ganon’s defeat. However, one of the young child villagers ran forward in the crowd. “Then why are there still monsters attacking the village?”

Zelda pursed her lips. “We will investigate,” she said.

More villagers began to ask all kinds of questions. I glanced at Impa and she nodded at me, as if to understand my thoughts. I reached over to Zelda and grabbed her hand before I gently pulled her back towards the door to Impa’s home.

“I will take all of your concerns for the Princess in due time,” Impa called as I pulled the door open. “For now, good night, and stay on your guard for stray monsters.”

-

Zelda let go of my hand when we reached the sanctuary of Impa’s house. She paced around in a circle and sighed. “Why did a monster come into the village? Monsters should never come into a village on their own, right? What are we going to do about this?”

“Your Highness, it was just a stray bokoblin—“ I started.

“The monsters should all be tame now. We defeated the calamity. They have no reason to feel irrational anger and come to attack people now. We should be able to live in peace with them.” Zelda held her arms to her head and leaned over as she panicked. “I did seal it away, right?”

“Your Highness…” I tried again.

“I must research this. The Calamity may not have been properly sealed away—“ Zelda stopped when I placed a firm hand on her shoulder. She flicked her head around and faced me. Though she was slightly taller than I, her green, anxious gaze pierced directly into my eyes. I prayed I was not acting out of line by touching her without permission.

“It was just a bokoblin. They aren’t very smart. It probably just wandered in behind us when it saw the caravan. Dorian and Cado took care of it,” I said while looking into her eyes. “Everything is fine. You don’t need to worry.”

She looked straight into my eyes with such great intensity that I wondered if I should step away before she broke the eye contact and looked down at the ground. She sniffed and nodded as tears began to form around her eyes. “I’m sorry, I think I’ve… overreacted…”

Impa cleared her throat. “I think the Princess needs to get some more rest. How about we clean you up and then send you to bed? We can continue talk of Hyrule Castle and monsters when you wake up in the morning.”

Zelda nodded slowly and Paya escorted her upstairs to her personal quarters. I wanted to follow and give her a tight hug, although I knew that would probably be _way_ out of line to my duty as her appointed knight. Impa told me I was welcome to stay as well but I decided I would stay at the inn that night to offer them all a little more privacy. 

I attempted to fall sleep early that evening but my mind kept drifting to the events earlier with Calamity Ganon. I decided to instead use the time to address my arm wound once more. I probably should have been seen by a doctor but I was not in the mood to answer a million questions about the battle yet. I retrieved a fresh bandage from Epona’s saddlebag and walked to the peninsula at the pond where Kakariko’s Goddess Statue resided, and sat myself down under the light of the torches. 

The red potion had luckily healed much of the delicate internal damage I’d acquired but the wound from Calamity Ganon on my shoulder would take some time to heal completely. I removed my tunic and undershirt before I applied potion-infused ointment to several minor wounds all over my torso that I accrued from monsters and malice burns in the castle. I smirked when I looked down at my abdomen. A Gerudo woman had once scoffed at me for not even having visible abs early on in my journey but there was… _some_ muscle defined there now from months of climbing Hyrule’s mountains and cliffsides. It was clearly enough muscle needed to defeat Calamity Ganon, anyways.

My ears twitched when footsteps treaded on the grass behind me. I instinctively thought to grab my sword, but then came a quiet, “Link?”

I looked over my shoulder, and relaxed immediately when I saw the figure behind me. “Your Highness, shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

Zelda folded her hands in front of her. Her golden hair was tied up behind her head in a bun and she wore a blue sleeping gown underneath a Sheikah robe that Paya must have lent to her. “I...wanted to thank you for calming me down earlier before I settled in for the night. I was just a little overwhelmed at how suddenly everything has changed.”

I turned around and wiped the remaining healing ointment from my hand onto my arm. “Nobody else seems to understand exactly what we’re going through right now.” I muttered. 

She nodded and pulled the collar of her robe up around her chin as a chilly breeze floated between us. If we weren’t having such a serious conversation, I would have considered more how it was quite a cute thing to do. She held her palm to her face as she sighed. “I...I do not think I am ready to go anywhere near the castle yet. Though it’s been a hundred years for everyone else, the memory of the destruction and loss is still too fresh, too painful in my mind...”

I stepped closer to her and she looked into my eyes once again. The light from the torches behind me flickered shadows onto her fair face. Fear and exhaustion plagued her face. 

My heart ached for her. 

She had just fought an unimaginable horror in the castle for a hundred years and now was expected to immediately begin facilitating the reconstruction of Hyrule. The villagers didn’t understand how they had set off this expectation in her mind, of course. Impa was correct that the castle needed reclaimed as soon as possible—but did Zelda really have to be there immediately?

I realized she had said something to me again but my mind had been lost in my thoughts. “Sorry, can you repeat that, Your Highness?” I asked, shaking my head.

“I said, I can see all of your scars... You have collected so many, if you don’t mind me saying. You’ve endured so much pain for us,” she said with a frown.

I looked down. The scars, a mix of the severe mortal ones I’d endured a hundred years ago and newer ones from my journey, littered in violent slashes across my body. I tightened my lips. People so easily understood I had been through pain when they saw my scars. However, nobody else seemed to notice Zelda’s struggle right now. 

I was probably the only one who could even somewhat understand what she went through with the events of the calamity. And now, she faced the immense pressure to rule Hyrule by herself. Such pressure on a single person was incredibly difficult to bear. In the past—as Zelda had reminded me earlier—the intense pressure of being the chosen wielder of the Master Sword had driven me to silence. I could not let Zelda fall to a similar fate of anxiety. 

“Your Highness, would you like to go somewhere? To get away from everything for a bit?” I blurted before I could consider my own words.

She blinked in mild confusion. “Leave here? What about the castle? Hyrule?”

“With all due respect, Your Highness, you won’t be assembling the castle by yourself. You just defeated Calamity Ganon. Let some other people begin work on the castle.” I put my hands on my hips. “Your Highness, you need a rest, even if a brief one. To be perfectly honest, I need one as well.”

“What about my sworn duties?”

I laughed. “The land has lasted a hundred years without an active ruler. The people can wait just a little longer for you to recover. A lot of people don’t even know that you’re still alive.”

Zelda folded her arms and tightened her lips. “Where would we go?”

I thought for a moment. “Hateno Village? I have a house there. It’s very safe there, and nobody would bother you. We could visit Purah’s Lab.” I tapped my jaw as I considered the other perks of Hateno. “There’s also a beach nearby, so you could see the ocean.”

Zelda furrowed her brow as she considered my proposal. “It does sound like a lovely place... I’ve never visited there before, actually. I would love to see Purah again too.“ A smile graced Zelda’s lips as she nodded. “It’s decided then. I will direct Impa to lead the Sheikah to begin the reclamation of Hyrule Castle, and inform her that I will be taking a short rest before I begin the rebuilding process.”

I smiled back at her and nodded. “We’ll leave at first light in the morning.”

“Wonderful,” She bowed her head lightly. “Good night, Sir Link, I’ll see you in the morning,” she said cheerfully before turning away and retreating back to Impa’s house.

My cheeks heated against the cool air when she used the formal title. It only then occurred to me that she’d never used any kind of title with me before that I could remember.

...Exactly how close _had_ we been before the calamity? 


	2. The Princess Releases Her Knight

_ Zelda _

Impa somehow caught onto my intention to leave before I even stepped down the stairs into the gathering room the next morning. “Where will you and Link be headed?” She asked before I greeted her. Paya sat beside her.

I froze in place. “How did you—?”

Impa laughed. “We saw you two talking outside in the moonlight last night, all  _ romantically _ ,” she said. Paya clasped her hands to her cheeks in embarrassment at her admission of spying on us and stepped out of the room.

“Oh, Impa! You  _ watched  _ us?” I sighed in exasperation. If one thing hadn’t changed, it was Impa’s keen senses of my feelings towards Link. A hundred years ago, she had claimed she knew I’d develop a crush on him even when I still despised him for holding the Master Sword. Ironically, her granddaughter, Paya, seemed to be exponentially more shy than Impa at the same age. 

“I was disappointed I didn’t see a kiss, but maybe he hasn’t quite caught up with you yet,” Impa smirked, and I felt my face heat. “So… where are you two going?”

“Hateno Village. I have been convinced to take a rest before starting my duties,” I said.

Impa hummed. “Hateno, huh? You might not be resting much if my sister gets wind you’re there…” She pointed to a small plate of scrambled eggs on the table and I sat down across from her. 

“We will only be there a short time. However, I have faith that the Sheikah can begin cleaning up the castle without my presence...” I said between bites of egg. My stomach immediately protested at the presence of food but I managed to keep it down, thankfully. At least Paya remembered to only prepare a small amount for me.

“I will see to it, Your Highness.” A hint of sorrow touched Impa’s smile. “I should have known better than to direct you back into the castle so soon. I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. “No need to apologize. It’s important to begin as quickly as possible but I…” I trailed off, unsure how to put my feelings into words. I’d always been shot down quickly by my father when voicing my opinion on the running of Hyrule in the past.

“You are lucky to have him looking out for your health,” Impa said quietly, referring to Link. “He has always looked out for you, even before the calamity.”

I nodded as I finished up the breakfast, and Paya stepped into the room. She held out something folded in her hands. ‘Your Highness, these are yours.”

I gasped. It was my old field research clothes. A hundred years ago, I had stopped at Impa’s home to change into my prayer dress before traveling to Mount Lunayru before the calamity. I couldn’t believe they were still intact, and Impa had kept them in perfect condition over all these years.

“I always had faith you would return victorious, and then want them back,” said Impa with a grin when I went to hug her.

-

I found Link outside the inn tending to his horse. He’d seemingly stuffed the saddlebags with as much produce from the shop as possible. His eyes looked tired—I hoped he hadn’t stayed up all night on guard. “Good morning,” I said. “Did you sleep?”

“Enough to ride. Are you ready to go, Your Highness?” He asked. I frowned, wondering if he had stayed up keeping an eye out for monsters all night. He tightened a belt on the horse to secure an impressive spear—one of his spoils from the castle, no doubt. “Epona can hold us both, though I’m willing to walk to give her a break every so often.”

I patted the nose of his horse as it turned its head to me. It was a slightly larger beast than his old horse. A pain shot through my core as I remembered that my beloved horse was most likely yet another casualty in the calamity. Link’s horse seemed to sense my change of heart because she nuzzled into my hand.

“I’m ready,” I confirmed.

After thanking Impa and Paya for their hospitality, we set out on the southern path. I had never ridden with Link on the same horse before. Before the calamity, we used to ride around on our horses together, exploring Hyrule between my training sessions—only after I had warmed up to him, of course. On those days in the wild, riding around with Link, I felt free from my burdens. 

It felt… familiar to be alongside him again. It was just the two of us, riding through the lush, quiet mountainside to the rhythm of Epona’s drumming hooves. We passed over the Kakariko Bridge and I watched sunlight dance on the water surface below. 

I wrapped my arms tightly around Link’s torso to steady myself as Epona trotted up a steeper hill, and I was a little surprised at his slenderness. Perhaps he’d lost a lot of weight during his slumber, or maybe his knight armor had always made him appear larger than he was in actuality. 

“You are quiet, Your Highness,” said Link.

Admittedly, I was still incredibly tired which lent to my abnormal quietness, however I was still taken aback with his comment. “I guess… I’m not yet used to the idea that you’re much more conversational now.” 

“I just seem to remember you speaking a lot in the memories I do have, Your Highness, even if it was a one-sided conversation.”

I scoffed. “What is that supposed to mean?” I couldn’t hide my giggle when I heard Link chuckling. That was a rare sound to hear…  _ Or was it, now? _

Initially, it horrified me to think about how his personality could change and he could grow to resent me after his restorative slumber. Robbie and Purah had explained, upon the shrine’s discovery and excavation, how the facility would deprive patients of their memory, and its restorative powers should be a last resort. I had no choice when he fell, and the spirit of his sword told me it would save his life. 

Yet, he still returned to me with a smile, and though he acted a little different around me now, I decided I did like this new, more relaxed Link.

I eyed the Master Sword, still on his shoulder, and I wondered if he should return it to the Lost Woods to slumber, now that the calamity was over. Its spirit hadn’t spoken to either of us, as far as I knew, since the calamity. Perhaps we would need to visit the Great Deku Tree soon.

I bumped lightly into Link’s shoulders when his horse stopped. I looked around in confusion as we had not yet reached Hateno Village. The damaged remains of the gate to Fort Hateno sprawled ahead, and a plain littered with Guardian corpses spread around us. 

I inhaled sharply. “Blatchery Plain,” I breathed. My chest felt heavy. “Can we stop at the wall? I would like to pay my respects.”

Hundreds of decaying Guardians, frozen in time, destroyed by the Hylian soldiers and my own awakened power, were spread across the field. I crossed my arms as I looked out at them from where we stood. The tall grass that fluttered in the wind revealed piles of rubble and small graves decorated with flowers from loved ones hidden around them every so often. The damaged wall of Fort Hateno was covered in moss and vines, unkept and left to the elements over years of abandonment.

This was the state of the once great Kingdom of Hyrule.  _ Ruined. _

...Because I only found the secret to unlocking my power too late.

I dropped to my knees and made no effort to stop the tears from flooding down my cheeks as I sobbed. Link stood beside me and held his sword to the ground. I had no idea how long I sat there and cried, looking over the battlefield, and letting the remorse wash over me.

Link stepped away behind the wall for a few minutes at one point. I paid him no mind, figuring he’d gone away to relieve himself or something. However, I was surprised when he returned with food in hand.  _ Cooked _ food.

“Where did you—?” I gasped, wiping tears away when I saw the cooked bird leg he offered in front of my face. 

“There’s a cooking pot outside a cabin back behind the wall. Try to eat. You need to build up your strength,” he said. 

I nodded and dried my cheeks before accepting the meat. I bit into the flesh, surprised to find he’d seasoned it with some salt and spices. I had never seen Link cook in the castle when he was just a knight, so he must have learned in the wild.

He seated himself beside me and leaned back against the stone walls, gnawing on a bird leg of his own. I ate about half of mine until I felt my stomach twist and decided against eating further.I offered him the rest and he took it without protest.

Link stared down at the grass. His eyes glossed over. “This is where fell—where I failed you.”

“Link…” I whispered and rubbed new tears away from my eyes. “You protected me to the last moment. I could not have had a better Hero.”

Link exhaled and I saw him staring at one of the guardian corpses from afar—possibly even the exact one that had prompted me to unlock my power. I wondered what he was imagining in his head. “Your Highness, I will attempt to live up to the knight I once was to you…” 

I offered him a small smile. “Just please try not to jump in front of a laser for me and die again, if you can help it.”

He clicked his tongue. “If I have to do it again, I will,” he said. I blinked, feeling my face flush even though his sentiment should not have been a surprise to me at this point. 

We arrived at Hateno Village late in the day. I had fallen asleep against Link’s shoulders shortly after we passed under the Cliffs of Quince, and I only woke once I heard the high pitched giggle of a child as we trotted into the village. Link waved at a villager hunched in a field of bamboo that called out to greet him. I sat up in the saddle, attempting to look more presentable, but the villager paid no special mind to my presence. Two small children bolted by us, waving at us as they passed before continuing on. I waved back at them before Link directed his horse down another path. Another person sweeping the area outside her house greeted us briefly before continuing her work. 

I’d never experienced this feeling of… anonymity? No,  _ normalcy _ , perhaps, before. No matter where I traveled in Hyrule as a child, the people always knew who I was. If not for my royal clothes, then because of my entourage of knights or accompaniment with the King. A hundred years later, with no formal entourage, none of these villagers knew my identity yet. In their eyes, I was probably just a guest of Link’s.

It was... _ strangely refreshing.  _

We passed over a bridge that led to a cozy looking little cottage. Link stopped the horse in front of the door. “This is it,” he said before helping me down. As I stretched my legs out, he unlocked the door with an old key on his belt, and ushered me inside. “Welcome, Your Highness.”

I stepped inside as Link fetched his groceries from Epona’s saddlebags. It was a humble home in size, yet the lofty ceiling impressed me. On the walls in the dining area were various weapons and shields hung on simply crafted display racks—more of Link’s spoils. The kitchen occupied one side of the space. A small sofa looked towards the fireplace on the far side of the room. Stairs to the right led up to a lofted area. Link slipped through the door behind me and lit a lamp on the wall.

“This is lovely,” I said. I wasn’t sure what I expected from the house of Link, a bachelor knight of Hyrule, but it was certainly a lot nicer than what I imagined many of the knights had in the barracks. “Is this the same home your family once owned? Your father’s?”

Link froze mid-movement as he packed fruits away into the cold storage below the stairs. “I…. I’m not sure,” he said very quietly.

“Oh…” I realized I may have struck a weak point in Link’s memory. I remembered Link’s father, a knight of the royal guard for my father, originally hailing from this village before moving to Castle Town. I wondered…  _ Did Link even remember his own family? _

My thoughts drifted to my own family. My mother, who passed away of sudden illness when I was seven, and then my father who cared so much for Hyrule and always pushed for me to train… Regret of leaving him under bad terms and never reconciling before he was killed by the calamity clawed at my soul. 

Link stepped over to me and the floorboards creaked under his steps. “I’ll start the fireplace,” he said, then he put a hand to his head. “Oh, I am such a bad host. I do have tea somewhere, I think, from Gerudo Town...”

His fretting flattered me, though I was just glad to be in a peaceful place away from the castle now. Link started up a fire in no time which warmed the house to a cozy temperature.The patter of rain on the roof above us signaled a shower had blanketed over the area. I sat at the table while he warmed a kettle and watched him as he gathered up ingredients to presumably cook later. I’d never seen him be so…  _ domestic  _ before. It amused me.

Once the kettle whistled, he poured us each a cup of tea. He handed me the ceramic cup. “Your Highness…” He said.

I took the cup. “Link, there is no need for such formality with me. In the past, we hardly used them with each other outside of the castle, and there is no Kingdom of Hyrule at the moment, anyways. Please, just call me Zelda,” I said.

He stared at me and raised an eyebrow. I wondered if I had somehow offended him as I wasn’t used to his new expressiveness. Finally, he spoke. “As you wish… Zelda,” he said. He grinned when he said my name, as if the word was sweet on his tongue.

I felt a hard beat in my chest that I hadn’t felt in… quite a long time. 

We sipped our tea quietly for a few minutes, listening to the rain hit the terracotta roof above. I was unsure what to speak about with Link. The horrors of fighting the Calamity were so fresh in our minds, I’m sure neither of us wished to discuss it. Link seemed content to lean back in his chair, and listen to the rain, as if the sound grounded him to the moment.

It wasn’t long before I once again felt the pull of exhaustion on my eyes and my head nodded. Link stepped up into the loft above for a few minutes. When he returned, he held out a hand for me. “If you would like to head to sleep, I just put new blankets on my bed. It’s all yours while you’re a guest here. I can take the sofa down here.”

I let out a nervous laugh. “I apologize. I know it is still early to retire for the night, I just…” 

“Nonsense, you haven’t slept for the last hundred years.” 

Link beckoned with his fingers and I accepted his hand. He led me up into the loft. It was small, only large enough for a small bookshelf, a desk, and a single-sized bed in the corner of the room. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “It’s uh... not fancy, and probably not anything like your old bed at the castle but… I always found it comfortable enough on nights when I was able to sleep here.”

“It’ll be perfectly suitable, Link, thank you,” I said as I pulled back the quilt.

He nodded before going back to the stairs. “Sleep for as long as you need. Whenever you’re hungry, I’ll be glad to cook something for you. Good night, Zelda.”

I nodded in gratitude as he stepped down out of the loft. I wrapped myself in the comfortable blankets, and quickly fell asleep as exhaustion once again took its hold on me.

-

I must have slept through the evening and the entire night, because when I awoke again, early morning sunlight spilled into the window. I sat up, disoriented by the unfamiliar walls, and blinked a few times before I remembered I was in Link’s house. My stomach growled for the first time since I sealed Ganon.

The whoosh of a sword splitting the air outside caught my attention. I crawled to peer out the window by the bed and looked down below. Link was outside already, practicing his swings. I smiled as I watched him. One thing that hadn’t changed was his dedication to routine training. His style was different though: rougher than before. He raised the Master Sword in a slow arc around his head, until he faltered to the side. I tightened my lips in concern. It had to be the injury on his arm. I decided to go down to see him.

Sparkling drips of water fell from the eaves above as I emerged from the cottage. I looked across the bridge towards the village beyond. Children played as adults whistled, carrying goods on their shoulders. It was such a lovely, peaceful town, completely untouched by the calamity. 

I shifted my gaze back to Link, who hadn’t noticed me yet. The villagers had welcomed him here so warmly.  _ Who wouldn’t want to live the rest of their life in peace here? _

I was the tie keeping him away from such a peaceful future. As long as he was with me, he would follow me into political situations, battles, or anything else that came with being involved with the Royal Family. It was not a passive lifestyle.

My heart ached for the suffering Link had gone through. His scars were only the tip of the pain he’d endured. I couldn’t force his duty upon him any longer, after his incredible service to Hyrule.

“Good morning, Zelda.” He’d finally noticed me. I stepped over to him as he wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. 

“Good morning, Link.”

“Did you sleep well?” he asked.

I nodded. “I do feel much better than yesterday.”

He sheathed his sword and placed his hands on his hips as he smiled at me. I had no idea where he picked up that stance after his restoration but it amused me. “I’m going to clean myself up inside, but how does breakfast sound?”

“Excellent. I do feel hungry now,” I said. When he moved towards me, I noticed dark circles under his eyes. “Didn’t you sleep at all last night?”

He hesitated. “Yes.” It was a short answer.

“...Link?”

“Yes, Zelda?” He said again, and stopped to turn to me.

I folded my hands as I considered how to put my words together. “Seeing this lovely little village, I wouldn’t be surprised if you wanted to stay here for the rest of your days to live peacefully. I… I want you to...not feel pressured to continue as my Appointed Knight now that our sacred mission is over. You have given Hyrule incredible service. I want it to be clear that you are released of your duty, if you wish.”

He stared at me, speechless, as an incredulous look appeared on his face. A songbird fluttered overhead and landed on the roof above us. Then, he laughed as if I had told an incredibly funny joke, holding a hand to his face. He stepped closer to me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Princess, I’m not leaving you any time soon. Wherever you go, I will be by your side, for as long as you allow.”

I blinked, not expecting him to refuse my offer. “But…?”

He grinned. “If memory serves me right, you’re my friend… I can’t just leave you now when you still need so much help, especially after I went and died for you once already.” He patted my shoulder and then re-entered the house.

My eyes dropped to the ground and I laughed to myself as my cheeks warmed.  _ How silly of me to think my friend would ever leave me alone.  _

-

We decided to visit Purah’s lab after breakfast. Link had changed out of his dirtied champion tunic into a Hylian styled red tunic with leather braces and armor. When I complimented his new outfit, he beamed. I still wasn’t used to his new expanded range of expressions.

We reached the center of town when Link told me to wait outside one of the shops for a minute because he wanted to surprise me with something. I’d taken the sheikah slate from him and was playing with its camera feature as I waited. Link soon re-emerged from the shop and handed me something. “What’s this?” I asked as I belted the slate and took it from him.

“It’s a hood. I have one too in the house. It’s good for traveling,” he said. I unfolded the hood. It had a pattern on it that resembled a flower. He rubbed the back of his head. “I thought you’d like that design better than the one I have, since you really like flowers—if I remember right.”

I smiled. It was a lovely gift, and the Goddesses knew I needed new clothes since mine probably all burned up in the castle. “Thank you, Link,” I said as I threw it over my shoulders. My long hair caught up in it a little bit but it still fit. I twirled around, feeling like a schoolgirl showing off her new outfit. “How do I look?”

Link smiled. “Great!”

We continued up the hill until we reached a curious looking building: the Hateno Ancient Tech lab. I frowned as I recalled the violent destruction of the Royal Ancient Tech lab. Thank the Goddesses that Robbie and Purah made it out alive and were able to migrate their work to safe locations...

Link was about to knock on the door when he turned to me. “Oh, I should probably tell you…”

Whatever he was about to say was cut off by the door flying open. “LINKY!!!” A child’s voice trilled. “I KNEW YOU WOULD DO IT!”

A small girl rushed into Link’s legs, embracing them tightly as she squealed. I tilted my head in confusion. The child had the signature hair of a Sheikah, and even wore their traditional clothing—though sized down considerably. But it was her red glasses and hair accessory that gave her identity away to me. I could never forget her signature style...  _ but why was she—? _

The child noticed me and gasped. “P-Princess Zelda!? You’ve come too?” She turned her head back to Link. “She looks so weak. Linky, aren’t you taking good care of her?”

Link’s cheeks reddened in embarrassment at her chiding. I was fairly certain I was not mistaken by the child’s identity now. “Purah? Is that… you?”

She grinned. “Yup, it’s me. I guess I have to explain it to you now. Come on in and let’s catch up! Click, snap!”

We entered the lab and I was introduced to Symin, Purah’s current assistant, before she sat us down at the table. She snatched the sheikah slate away and placed it on the Guidance Stone nearby, stating she had an update for it. As it loaded, she informed me about why she had reverted to a child-like form, and how she’d been continuing research over the last hundred years. I glanced around the lab and my eyes drifted to her shelves of books about ancient civilizations and sheikah technology: my past passion. She noticed my attention drifting to the shelves and laughed. “Princess, you’re welcome to come study here any time you’d like.”

When the slate’s update was complete, she handed it back to me. “I’ve created a feature where you can check the operational status of the Divine Beasts in real time, remotely. It should make studying their efficiency much easier.” 

“Thank you Purah, this will be incredibly helpful in managing them,” I said, tapping the screen to view the new functionality. Link poked his head over my shoulder in curiosity. All of the Divine Beasts were currently functioning at full capacity, though their most powerful lasers were still recharging from blasting Calamity Ganon a few days ago.

“Fascinating,” Link commented.

We chatted a little longer about our current plans and the Sheikah’s order to begin clearing out the castle. I instructed Purah and Symin to continue their research, as there was still much to learn about the ancient technology and how we could prevent it from being corrupted by malice again. We left the lab, and I continued to fiddle around with the slate.

“You’ve missed tinkering,” said Link as we walked through the village.

I nodded before I opened up the camera feature again and snapped a few pictures of some textiles on display outside the clothing shop. We passed beneath a shrine looming on the cliff above, and I snapped a photo of it.

“I should show you the inside of one of those shrines sometime,” said Link.

I gasped. “You would take me?”

He nodded. “Only once you’ve recovered, of course, and as long as there aren’t any guardians inside.”

I smiled at him and felt more motivated than ever to regain my strength. I placed the Sheikah Slate at my hip once more. Only much later would I notice a cloaked figure peering at us from behind the shrine that I’d captured in the photograph.


	3. Acceptance

_ Link _

We continued to take it easy for the next few days. Zelda slept late into the mornings which gave me ample time to keep up my routine training exercises. I was on alert constantly for stray monsters or even Yiga Clan members who had found our location, but fortunately, all had been peaceful since our arrival. The villagers had suspected nothing of Zelda’s presence either. 

In the meantime, I tried to cook the best meals possible for us—fresh meats, eggs, and healthy fruits and vegetables—to get both of our strength back. I hunted in the mornings and evenings to keep a supply of fresh meat on hand.

Zelda’s body soon acclimated to fully portioned meals and her physical strength began to return. It turned out that she wasn’t much of a cook since she was used to castle staff preparing all of meals for her, so I decided to keep the honor of making her meals. She liked to watch me prepare things for some reason, as if she was fascinated with how I could concoct certain flavors together. Maybe it was her interest in science that made her want to observe. I didn’t mind since I did enjoy cooking anyways. 

My shoulder injury from Calamity Ganon still needed to be carefully tended. Guardian technology always inflicted the weirdest wounds. Otherwise, I’d regained most of my physical strength that had drained from the last, most difficult leg of my quest. However, dreams hindered my attempts to sleep at night. Some of them were fuzzy memories of my past but others were nightmares that spooked me awake for hours and left me tired the rest of the day. Zelda seemed to notice I hadn’t been sleeping but I didn’t want to worry her by telling her. 

-

A few days later, I suggested a beach day to Zelda. She excitedly agreed as she had never had time to relax on a beach before the calamity. She bought a simple dress in Hateno just for the occasion, and we took Epona down the hillside to Hateno Beach the very next morning. We were the only ones there as it was far past the end of the peak of summer’s warmth, but we did not mind. I spent much of the afternoon napping on the beach, grateful for the chance to lay out in the sun, though the Master Sword was just within my reach in case anything threatened us.

Zelda stepped through the shallow waves looking for fish and crabs to study. I waded out when she called me over to look at a really big razor shell crab, and I leaned over the tide pool where it hid. She tried to pick it up but it scurried down under the sand before she could grab it. She sighed in disappointment. 

I decided to tease her, and flicked my hand across the water to splash her. She squealed, and the skirt of her new dress darkened with the water droplets. For a moment I panicked, thinking she was genuinely angry with me. Then she growled as she struck her hand across the surface and sent water flying back at me. This incited a splash fight.

“You goof! You would have  _ never _ dared to do this a hundred years ago!” She said between laughs as she scooped her arms down to send arcs of water at me. 

I grinned, not minding the revenge she splashed onto my chest. “How do you know? We just didn’t have any time to splash around back then.”

She poked her tongue out at me. It was such an unexpected cute gesture that I froze as it took me off guard. When she kicked a splash at me, it caused me to topple over into the water. I yelped when my bare back hit the cold surface of the water and chilly bubbles fizzled around my body. Saltwater punctured into my shoulder wound with a fresh sting. Zelda cackled as I shook droplets from my hair. 

I looked down into the clear water and the glint of a white scallop shell in the sand below caught my eye. I cupped my hand around it, shook the grainy sand away, and brought it up to my face. The pain in my wound subsided.

Zelda stepped through the water towards me when her giggles calmed. She held out a hand. “I’m sorry… I forgot about your injury... Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I said. I accepted her hand, stood, and then clasped the scallop shell into it. “For you, my Princess,” I said.

She looked down at the seashell. Her lips tightened into a gleaming smile. “Thank you, Link.”

The ocean sparkled in the afternoon light around us, but to me, she was even more radiant. 

-

After a few more days of resting in Hateno, Zelda expressed she was beginning to feel antsy. She suggested going out for an all day ride. We rode all the way to the Dueling Peaks stable, where I picked up another horse for Zelda to ride. Zelda happily snapped photos in the mountainside while we rode. We traveled quite far from Hateno, through the highlands to the north and west, almost making it all the way back to Kakariko—though Zelda didn’t wish to stop by the village again just yet. I knew she wanted to avoid the mob of questioning villagers. 

When we crested Mable Ridge, we could see the castle for the first time since the calamity. Zelda gasped when the tallest tower appeared over the hill. I was about to ask if she wanted to turn back when she hopped off the horse and ran forward, down the slope, as if being on her own feet could ground her more in what she was seeing. I dismounted and followed her until I reached her side.

We stood for a long time, taking in the sight of the castle, no longer shrouded in malice but now an empty shell surrounded by the ruins of a town we both once knew well. Zelda sniffled as she gazed over the barren landscape of Central Hyrule that once held lively towns, outposts, and markets filled with her faithful subjects. Now, the charred landscape had regrown into a wild grassland, but the tattered old kingdom banners still waved in the distance. I clasped my hand to her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her, though I knew there was nothing I could do to heal the pain. She made no effort to shrug me off.

“I think… I am ready to go to see the leaders of each race. Our citizens need to know we’ve been victorious after all the destruction they endured, and it’s time to restart. They need to see our faces, personally.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. 

She nodded. “News of our victory will spread even as far as Hateno soon, and I’m sure our anonymity and unbothered days of rest there are numbered. We may as well begin by visiting each race in Hyrule. We’ll make each visit brief, just to speak with the chiefs and your friends. But where to begin...” Zelda trailed off. She looked solemnly at the castle. A wind blew through her hair, sending golden waves around her face. The Sheikah Slate beeped at her hip and I removed my hand from her shoulder. She clasped the slate and looked down, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand as she studied the notification.

“What is it?” I asked.

“That answers that question... We’ll make our way to Zora’s Domain,” she said, swiping her finger around the display on the slate. “Divine Beast Vah Ruta… looks like it stopped working.”

“Stopped entirely? That can’t be good.”

“Let’s investigate the situation,” she said with a light nod. Then her tone quieted. “Mipha’s father… I believe he would like to hear more about her. The least we can do is visit him and offer him some closure.”

I frowned as I recalled the elder zoras blaming me for her death upon my initial arrival to their domain.“The zoras were heartbroken over Mipha’s death,” I said. “They will appreciate your visit.”

Zelda turned her gaze back to the castle. “Although Ganon is gone for now, there is still so much more for us to do... And so many painful memories that we must bear.” She paused as she looked down again at the map of Hyrule on her slate as she zoomed out to our current location. “I believe in my heart, that if all of us work together… we can restore Hyrule to its former glory. Perhaps… even beyond,” she added quietly.

I nodded, and looked back at the castle. I knew there were sheikah stationed there but we could not see them from this distance.

“But it all must start with us,” said Zelda, her voice trailing off a bit. She furrowed her brow in thought for a moment before turning on her toes to our horses. “Let’s be off.”

I started to follow her but she halted in place. “Something wrong?” I asked, feeling my muscles tense as I assumed she’d heard a monster.

She did not turn to face me but shook her head. “I can no longer hear the voice inside the sword. I suppose it would make sense if my power had dwindled over the past 100 years…” 

I frowned, and stepped forward in case I needed to comfort her again. But then she faced me, and for only a moment, gloom shrouded her face. Then, her mouth formed into a small grin which made me freeze in place. “I’m surprised to admit it… But I can accept that.” She said. 

In her mind, the long journey to unlock her powers was finally complete. She could now begin to move on. The emotions manifested on her face with a smile—a true smile—and it shone upon me like the sun. Her burdens lifted from her. I felt the overwhelming urge once again to hug her, and my feet carried me forward on their own. My logical mind reminded me to stop just before reaching her, so I gave her a reassuring nod instead, and we returned to the horses. 


	4. The Mystery of the Blood Moons

_ Link _

“On behalf of the entire Kingdom of Hyrule, I wish to apologize to you, King Dorephan, Prince Sidon, and to all of your subjects,” Zelda said with a respectful bow of her head. 

I kneeled beside her in solitude to the King as the Zora warriors surrounding the perimeter of the Zora throne room regarded us with solemn frowns. The rush of the waterfalls echoed in the chamber as the morning light sent arched reflections dancing on the luminous stone ceiling above us. The fluttering light made me sleepier. I’d had another nightmare about a guardian attacking me last night and spent most of the early morning hours awake on my couch, calming down.

The King closed his eyes as he accepted Zelda’s apology. The young warriors remained silent as some of the elders in the room continued to frown. “Calamity Ganon has been defeated, you say?” King Dorephan said in his low, slow voice, breaking the silence. His small eyes darted to me. “Then the mission was successful, and Mipha’s efforts were not in vain.”

I nodded. Mipha, and all the other champions, had assisted me before their spirits finally rested. “Her grace will never be forgotten,” I said.

The King nodded his bulbous head. “I’m glad you came to provide us with these words, Princess of Hyrule.”

“If I may,” Prince Sidon asked as he stepped forward to address us. “I just want to add that it has been so difficult to accept her passing over the years, with many of us pointing accusing fins at the castle before Link came to us. But I personally hold onto the hope we can make full amends. You have my full support, as Prince of the Zora.”

Zelda folded her hands and looked down at her boots. “Thank you, Prince Sidon. Once the Kingdom of Hyrule has been re-established, I would like to work with you and King Dorephan, to build something to memorialize the loss of your beloved Mipha. She will never be forgotten in history to my people.”

This offer seemed to further please the King. Prince Sidon continued. “I will do what I can to assist you, Princess Zelda. We must be unified in our determination to prevent any disaster like this from occurring again. The beast that Mipha fought inside the Divine Beast was a manifestation of terrible hatred that used our own water supply to destroy. We are incredibly grateful that Link was able to defeat it using the Sheikah technology runes.” 

My eye’s met Sidon’s when he spoke of my battle. He had not entered Vah Ruta with me—how did he know about Waterblight Ganon and the Sheikah runes? 

“Link, I am grateful for the friendship you shared with Mipha. She was always excited when you came to visit my domain. I hope you cherish the handmade gift of armor she left for you—it was meant as an engagement gift, after all, but sadly she never had the chance to offer it,” said Dorephan.

My shoulders tightened in embarrassment at the mention of the armor. Zelda flinched in surprise out of the corner of my eye. “Y-yes, King Dorephan, I will,” I managed to say.

“She will be at peace to see you happy and free of your burdens now,” said the King. Then he looked to the guards. “Our guests from the castle are to be always welcome here. Please ensure they have a comfortable stay at the inn tonight after attending to Vah Ruta.”

-

“You didn’t tell me you were  _ engaged _ to Mipha,” Zelda whispered to me as we followed Sidon to Vah Ruta’s perch on top of the summit at the Zodobon Highlands. Though she whispered, the surprise on her face was evident.

“I didn’t remember.” It was the truth—of all the memories of Mipha I now held, I could not remember anything… romantic... ever happening. 

“It was never official,” commented Sidon from ahead. Though he could have easily swam up the waterfalls faster than us, he had opted to hike along with us. He’d overheard our whispering. I supposed sharks had good ears. “In fact, you may have never known of her plan to propose. Mipha told me she was going to give the armor to you the next time you came with Zelda to inspect Vah Ruta… but that never occurred before the calamity.”

I looked down at my boots as we trudged up the slope. I could still see the painful image of Mipha’s ghostly face in my head as she offered me her graceful healing power and pleaded for me to go to rescue Zelda. I furrowed my brow as I recalled a few fuzzy memories of my visits to the domain as a child.

_ Grumble _ .

My ears twitched and I stopped in place. I scanned the trees on the cliff side above for the source of the noise.A breeze sent my hair flowing past my eyes as I looked back down the path we had just traveled.

“Something the matter?” Sidon called when he noticed I had stopped. “We’re almost there. You can take a rest in Vah Ruta.”

I shook my head when nothing caught my eye. “It’s fine. I thought I heard something.”

We reached the summit a few minutes later, and the wind sent chills through my core as it raced across the highlands. Zelda pulled her hood around her as she gazed up at Vah Ruta. A smile of entrancement graced her lips as she looked up in awe at the technological wonder. Seeing her smile at the technology calmed my nerves immediately.

Sidon assisted us in entering the Divine Beast. It appeared fully functional in my eyes when we stepped past the blue glow of its outer lights but the Sheikah Slate had indicated an error of some kind. A chill ran through me as I recalled my last visit inside the beast. Though it was much more pleasant now that the malice had cleared away. 

Zelda made her way to the main control panel with Sidon to begin decoding the issue. I sat down near the entrance and gazed out over the land. I was grateful for the warmth of the late afternoon sun on my cheeks as I leaned against the metal wall of Vah Ruta. The days were getting shorter, and the coldest months of the year would soon begin. I glanced down at the blue glow of Zora’s Domain and my mind drifted once again to Mipha. 

She had been in love with me, and it bothered me that I could not remember much interaction with her. I remembered a time when she healed my arm after I cut myself climbing around Vah Ruta during one of Zelda’s surveys. I remembered the way her eyes would observe the room with quiet intelligence as we held meetings with the other champions. But did she ever confess feelings to me? I had no memory of such an occurrence.

“Everything alright, Link?” I heard Sidon’s optimistic voice from behind me. 

I didn’t turn my head. “Yes. Did you find the problem?”

“One of the pumps is malfunctioning but Princess Zelda is already working on it with those magnesis runes in the slate. It’ll be good as new in no time!”

I nodded in response.

“You don’t remember my sister very well, do you, Link?”

I tightened my lips. “I remember some things. My memory isn’t completely restricted yet... There are gaps.”

“Perhaps with more time to rest your body and mind, you will remember her more.” Sidon sat down beside me. A small bird fluttered past us. “She really loved you, you know.”

“Apparently enough to want to propose. And I cannot remember if I even loved her back, let alone enough to accept. Isn’t that awful?”

Sidon chuckled. “Do not worry, Link. My father apparently had no idea she had such a crush on you until he found her making that armor one night. Perhaps you didn’t even know, if you get what I mean.”

“Maybe…” I muttered. 

“Please don’t dwell on her feelings. She would want you to follow your heart now, Link. That’s what would make her happiest. I know that for a fact,” said Sidon. “You still have a chance for love in this era. Don’t let it pass by you.”

I nodded and stared down at my hands. After everything that happened, I wondered if I would ever be able to settle down one day. When Zelda brought the idea up to me at Hateno Village, I’d laughed at the possibility of leaving her to stay in a slow-moving place like Hateno forever.  _ But was it the thought of settling down that I’d outright refused, or leaving my best friend to do so? _

A metallic grind of something mechanical turning on rumbled behind us. Sidon turned. “Ah, looks like Princess Zelda has finished already.”

Zelda emerged from the dark of Vah Ruta. Her knees were dusty and her sleeves covered in oil stains, yet she trotted up to us with a skip in her step and a big smile. “I could tinker around in here all day,” she said with a hum.

In fact, we ended up staying in Vah Ruta for a few more hours so Zelda could teach Sidon more about Vah Ruta’s inner workings. I didn’t mind, and took the opportunity to nap while they walked the area inside. My mind drifted to a hazy memory, a new dream, as I fell unconscious…

_ A young girl with a song on her tongue, pranced ahead of me through the streets of Castle Town. Was it Zelda? No, it couldn’t be: her hair fell in a honey blonde wave behind her as she stopped in a patch of sun in the alleyway and twirled around as birds flitted past her. I caught up with her as she reached the end of her tune, and she turned to me with a cheeky grin. “I bet you’re excited to see the Princess all dressed up at the royal ball, Link! You’ve only been talking nonstop about her since your promotion to her unit of the Royal Guard.” _

_ I heard myself laugh. “The Princess isn’t very fond of me. She’d never dance with me.” _

_ The girl rolled her eyes as she spun around. “Nonsense, who wouldn’t dance with the knight who was chosen to seal away the darkness?” _

_ “The Princess, apparently. She is always so cold towards me.” _

_ “Well, you’ll both have to find something in common in order to work together well.” She shook her head, and the ray of sunlight disappeared, blocked by a cloud above. Her bright blue eyes mirrored my own as she flicked her attention to me. “Promise me you won’t be too reckless, when the time comes... I want to be able to hug my big brother again after you beat the big bad guy.” she said in a softer voice. _

_ I nodded. “Of course, Taryll...” _

_ The snap of a twig behind me drew my attention. I whirled around. My sister gasped. “Bokoblins!” She yelled, hiding behind me as a group of the red monsters ran at us with clubs drawn. I charged at them, as I was the only force who could protect my sister from danger. _

I flinched awake, my heart pounding as I instinctively reached over my shoulder for the sword hilt. Instead, I found air, as the Master Sword sheath laid across my lap. I exhaled, resigning to the fact it had just been another nightmare. Luckily, Sidon and Zelda were still somewhere in Vah Ruta and didn’t notice my rough awakening. 

The girl in my dream had seemed like a real person.  _ My… sister? _ I furrowed my brow as I looked down at Zora’s Domain. I could almost see the statue of Mipha from my vantage point. Could this girl have survived the calamity? Even if she had, she probably was dead already. Did she have descendants? I would never know, as I had no idea who to ask.

I decided to do some training. Zelda and Sidon eventually emerged from Vah Ruta. They had finished just as the sunset lit up the sky in hues of gold. We began our hike back towards Zora’s Domain, and darkness fell on us, our path lit exclusively by the blue glow of the Zora luminous trail markers.

We descended Ruto Mountain. At one point during the descent, Zelda drew closer and grabbed my arm when we heard a small animal scurry in a pine grove on the mountainside behind us. I decided to tease her. “Are you scared of the dark, Princess?” 

Surprisingly, she clicked her tongue in a rare show of sass. “I  _ seal _ the dark, Link.”

Sidon chuckled ahead of us. That was when I heard the thud of hooves coming from our left. When I saw the flash of metal and a white mane of fur, I grabbed Zelda by the arm and yanked her forward. 

The lynel’s axe swing barely missed our heads as I pushed us out of the path of its wild charge.

I ripped the Master Sword from its sheath and leapt at the monster. It reared onto its hind legs to charge at us once again but Sidon jumped onto its back first and speared its neck with his tridents. I sent a horizontal slice into its legs before it bucked him off. With a shriek, it raked its claws at me. I used my sword to parry, but a wave of pain in my arm caused me to falter. I hissed when one of the claws sliced into my cheek. A small flash of light momentarily blinded all of us, including the lynel, and I used it as an opportunity to stab the lynel straight on. Its heavy body fell hard against a boulder on the side of the path with a thud.

“Are you okay, Zelda?” I breathed, turning to her after Sidon confirmed the monster was dead. 

The Princess nodded, though I could see her shaking. “I’m sorry, I tried to use my power to help… but it has greatly depleted...”

“No worries, Princess Zelda, you did great just giving us a moment of advantage,” said Sidon, flashing his signature smile at us.

“Strange place for a lynel to be roaming,” I muttered as I eyed the beast. I wiped the blood from my cheek with the back of my hand.

“Let’s keep moving,” said Sidon with a nod of agreement. “We need to patch you up.”

We reached the Great Zora Bridge several minutes later. Zelda, still shaken a little by the attack, stopped to take a few photos of the bridge and domain illuminated in blue in the darkness of night. I leaned against one of the illuminated path markers as I watched her snap pictures. Zora’s Domain was truly one of the most magical places in all of Hyrule at night. If my cheek hadn’t been such a mess, I may have volunteered to take a photo with her in front of it. 

“What is….that?” Zelda whispered. I followed her gaze towards the mountain behind us that we had just descended. A strange glow emitted from its peak.

“Is there a fire?” Sidon asked.

I squinted. It didn’t seem to flicker quite like a fire. It was a pure red light. Then I realized its source, as it was something I’d seen often on my travels. “It’s a blood moon,” I said quietly. “Rising from behind the peak.”

The sky began to glow with an ominous red. Sidon grunted. “We’d better get inside our walls.”

Zelda crossed her arms. “But the calamity has been defeated. There shouldn’t be any monsters reviving under blood moons anymore… right?”

As if on command, several skeletal monsters rose from the ground on the far side of the bridge where we had come from. Embers of malicious energy began to rise from the earth. Zelda gasped and covered her mouth in horror as her hypothesis was disproved.

_ Grumble _ .

The sound again. It was the distant roar of the lynel. It had awoken again.

I set my jaw and reached for Zelda’s hand. “We’re not dealing with this tonight,” I said as I pulled her across the bridge. Sidon paced behind us and shooed away the small skeletal monsters that drew up from the earth. Octoroks in the water fired projectiles over our heads as we sprinted but we managed to make it inside the protected perimeter of Zora’s Domain without further interruption. 

-

The zoras reserved the entire inn for us—possibly because of Zelda’s royalty status, or we were just the only guests that night anyways. Sidon stood in the entry door, folding his arms with a puzzled look on his fishy face. The sky returned to normal a few minutes after we arrived, though there were now revived monsters roaming around in the wilderness around the domain.

“What should we do? What does this mean?” Zelda mumbled. She rocked as she sat on the edge of her bed in the inn. The monster revivals had sent her into yet another panic attack. 

“We’ve always had blood moons,” I said.

“No, they were an omen to Ganon’s return. They should be gone now, unless he is coming back again soon,” Zelda said, clasping her hands on her opposing arms.

I finished rubbing ointment to my cheek before I applied the ice pack the innkeeper had given me. I sat down on the edge of my bed, across the room from Zelda. “I didn’t know the moon was connected to the calamity,” I said.

“The Zora believe the red moon is not harmful itself,” said Sidon. “It is natural. We have tales of its origin but it is thought that it has a strange magnification power. The calamity somehow used this power to spread malice upon the midnight hour and revive monsters.”

Zelda held her face in her hands. “And their revival means I… I failed again,” she sniffed. Her face reddened as her internal anxiety rose. “The calamity still lives, and will return once more…”

“Zelda…” I stood and walked across the room.

“Maybe my power wasn’t fully unlocked… but now I’ve depleted its strength, so we cannot seal it again if he is coming back,” she said, her fingers squeezing her upper arms. Panic grew in her eyes and she was shaking again. “It was all for nothing.”

“I saw you seal it away. You did everything right,” I reassured her as I stood in front of her. She pursed her lips as she glanced up at me.

“If I may suggest, maybe there is just some leftover evil energy, and the monsters will stop reviving soon. We’ve seen less of them since the Vah Ruta’s laser struck the castle,” offered Sidon. 

Zelda shook her head. “There must be something I did wrong.”

“Zelda,” I said with a sigh. She didn’t acknowledge me, so I sat down on the bed beside her and placed my hand on her cheek. “Zelda. Look at me,” I said more firmly, turning her head towards me with my palm.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, and I once again wondered if I had crossed a line of professionalism. Technically, she’d released me as her knight, and I was allowed to call her by her first name, so maybe there was no formal line between us anymore anyways. Her eyes stared into mine, and I let myself get lost in them for only a second before I spoke without thinking. “You were perfect.”

She stopped sniffing and wiped her eyes. “W-what?”

“You have the blood of a Goddess” I affirmed. I felt my cheeks warming but I couldn’t stop now. “I saw you seal away Ganon with the Goddess’s power, and you did nothing wrong. You did everything perfectly.”

Zelda looked down at her hands. “But there has to be a logical reason why the monster revivals haven’t stopped yet…”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe we were wrong about it being an omen of the calamity. We know the calamity will not be returning any time soon because the seal will hold for a very long time, as it always has in the past.”

Zelda stared for a minute at the ground but then held her head in her hands again. “I just need… to do more research before we continue on around Hyrule. I wish to return to Purah’s lab in Hateno,” she mumbled before settling into a fit of sniffles. 

“If it will ease your worries,” I said. She nodded but continued sniffing. I frowned, realizing she was probably crying out her tiredness now, and held my hands out to her. She leaned into my shoulder and settled into an exhausted sob and allowed me to hold her. Sidon only watched for a moment before he excused himself for the night and slipped out of the room.

The touch barrier, that maybe only I thought was there, had definitely broken down between us. 

-

After Zelda calmed down, I slipped away to the cooking pot outside to make something, as we hadn’t eaten since our lunch on the way to Vah Ruta. It was almost midnight so all of the zora were asleep in their communal pool. I pondered Zelda’s concerns as I cut up fruit I’d packed and dropped them on the simmering cauldron.

She did have a point. If the calamity’s malice was gone, the blood moon’s ability to revive monsters should have disappeared with it. Yet, the monsters drew evil power from somewhere to revive. Could Zelda find that information in research somewhere? Probably not, or else someone would have stopped them already. But I knew she would give it her best effort. 

I turned a piece of hydromelon over and watched the sugars fizz over the heat. Cooking always relaxed me. A few minutes later, I gathered the fruits into a bowl and dusted a tiny bit of sugar on them. I heard the door of the inn open, and Zelda stepped out. Her head flicked around until she spotted me, and I waved her over. “Just in time,” I said, handing her the bowl. “I thought something sweet for us would be nice for a late night dinner.”

She nodded, and we moved to lean against the railing that overlooked the cascading waters and lake below. This cooking area was a private corner of the domain just for guests of the inn. The glow of the luminous stones in the structure provided us with a candle-like, blue ambience under the stars. We gazed up at them together.

“I’m sorry,” said Zelda after she took a few pieces of fruit into her palm. “I shouldn’t have broken down like that in front of Prince Sidon. It was not something the leader of Hyrule should do. I will have to apologize to him tomorrow morning.”

“Nonsense, do you think the King never cried?” I asked. Zelda paused her chewing and I quickly changed the subject as I realized it was a sore subject. “Do you know how many times I cried during my journey? I know you must have seen when you watched over me.”

Zelda pouted her lower lip and grabbed a wildberry. “A lot of that was from injuries. Speaking of… how is your cheek?”

“It stings but will be healed up by morning.”

“And your shoulder?”

I frowned. “I think I tore the wound open again with the lynel.”

Zelda sighed. “It’s tough to keep up with all your injuries, you know.”

I laughed, and picked up the baked apple in the bowl. Unfortunately, it hadn’t had enough time to cool yet when I bit into it. The hot, gooey inside seared the interior of my mouth. I choked, spitting the apple over the balcony’s edge and fluttered my hand to cool down my tongue. Zelda giggled softly, but her laugh intensified when I looked around and realized I’d neglected to bring any water to the cooking area. She handed me her own cup that she’d had the foresight to grab from the inn.

I sipped it gratefully. “Thank you,” I gasped, once the cold water soothed my burn.

Zelda shook her head in amusement. “No, I owe it to you. You saved me once again,” she said.

“That’s my job,” I said with a grin. 

She giggled. “It _was_ your job. I set you free, remember?”

I tilted my head. “Eh, a job title means nothing to me.”

She took a step closer to me and placed the bowl on the post nearby. “I am the  _ Princess of Hyrule _ , let me remind you. My words are practically law.”

“Oh really?” I said, a smile tugging my lips as I welcomed her teasing as I knew she was definitely joking with me. “What kind of laws are you writing these days?”

She pouted at me, and reached up to inspect my injured cheek. I flinched at her soft touch, and my heart pounded a little harder in my chest. She was standing so close to me, I could detect the smell of the flowery soap she’d bought from the shop in Hateno. Unfortunately, she still had some Divine Beast oil on her clothes that mixed in with her alluring scent.

“For one, I declare that you need to stop getting hurt while you’re saving me,” she said. “Luckily this cut isn’t so bad.”

I chuckled. “I’m not sure if that’s possible for me, at this point.”

She pouted in response. The cute way her cheeks puffed amused me, and my hand suddenly acted on its own. My fingers trailed through a lock of her hair that fell past her cheek. She inhaled a sharp breath as my fingers lingered at the soft corner of her jaw. I wished I had the courage to kiss her.

I suddenly snapped to my senses, and lowered my arm.  _ What was I doing? _

“We should get to sleep soon if we want to return to Purah’s Lab early tomorrow,” I said in a low voice. She nodded in agreement and retrieved the bowl from the post before we headed back inside.

I wasn’t sure what had possessed me to touch her face, but I knew I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable with me.

After wishing her good-night, I settled into my bed and pulled the silky sheets around me. That night, I dreamt of a distant memory: a pleasant one, for once, that I hadn’t yet recalled... 

_ I was at the castle, accompanying a group of guard members and soldiers during a council with the King. However, the soldiers were so much bigger than me, and all I wanted to do was run around the Great Hall and climb around. After a lighthearted scolding from one of the knights regarding my attempt to climb up a column, I was returned to the royal guard member I’d traveled with: my father. His bright blue eyes regarded me sternly and I felt myself shrink under his strong gaze. However, by his smirk, I now understood he was amused by my antics. _

_ He led me by the hand into the dining hall where the King had prepared a reception for the unit. A small girl with golden hair and bright green eyes who seemed near my age approached me. A small egg-shaped creature--a miniature guardian of some kind--followed her and beeped in greeting at me. The girl handed me an apple she retrieved from the table. I smiled at her before I began chomping down on the fruit to eat it as quickly as possible. Her eyes widened as she watched my determined eating frenzy. I looked up at my father who placed his hands on his hips and knelt down to be at my eye level. A few of his guardmates chuckled as they watched us. _

_ “Is that any way to eat in front of the lovely Princess Zelda? If you want to be a knight one day, you must learn to use your manners, Link,” he said. _

_ The Princess giggled, and I felt my face flush in embarrassment. She was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. I didn’t want her to find me strange... _


	5. A Rocky Start

_ Zelda _

I clasped my fingers to the back of my head and squeezed sections of my hair as I groaned in frustration. Symin glanced at me from the desk to my right where he leaned over his encyclopedia of ancient technology parts. 

The books sprawled on the table before had offered none of the information I seeked. Upon our return to Hateno this morning, I’d immediately checked in to Purah’s lab and gathered all of her books in a pile that may have had a smidge of information about blood moons, monster revivals, and the calamity. Apparently, every academic in recent times viewed the event as an omen of hatred and a reminder of the calamity. I needed to go back further than the history recorded since the last calamity 10,000 years ago... but it was incredibly difficult to find surviving texts in conditions that could be deciphered.

A shuffle from the staircase broke my trance as Purah danced down the steps. “Did you find what you’re looking for, Princess?” 

I leaned back in the chair and moaned. “Not yet,” I said.

Purah pursed her small lips. “Well, keep looking… there must be something written down somewhere. If not here, maybe there’s something that survived in the library in the castle..”

I swallowed. The castle... In the past few days, I hadn’t thought about having to return to my decimated home, a reminder of my greatest failure.

“Speaking of the castle,” began Purah. She held up a folded piece of paper and flashed a peace sign at me. “I actually received a message from my sister—can you believe she barely writes to me anymore unless it involves either you or Link!?”

I raised my eyebrows in response. Symin rolled his eyes and turned the page of his text. Purah lowered her arm. “Impa wants me to travel to the castle. Apparently, the Kakariko Sheikah found the central mainframe hub for controlling the towers in the observatory while clearing out monsters. It was damaged during Link’s battle with Calamity Ganon and the towers are malfunctioning now, so she wants to see if I can fix it.”

“That sounds like a great idea, Purah,” I said with a nod.

Purah nodded. “Symin and I will be heading out tomorrow morning. I’ll be meeting Robbie at the castle as well. I haven’t seen him in... quite a while, so it will be great to see him.”

“I’m sure he will be delighted to see you again too,” I said with a hum. I had yet to see my old colleague Robbie in person since the calamity, though I’d observed him from afar when I watched over Link’s progress.

Purah  folded a book under her small arm. “Oh, and feel free to use the lab while I’m out. Just try not to burn it down—I’ve almost done that a few times, and it is not fun to clean up.” She winked.

I continued combing through texts and started on the pile of astronomy books once the evening came. The Sheikah were excellent star mappers and documented the night skies very well, yet the blood moon phenomenon remained quite mysterious. I drummed on the table in frustration. My eyes had tired. Purah had long retreated to her study and Symin left for the day when I heard the door open behind me.

I flicked my head to see Link. He wore sheikah clothes suited for stealth, and I knew that meant he’d been out on a hunting spree all afternoon—an activity he’d done a few times since we arrived in Hateno to keep our food supply stocked and to sell for rupees at the market. If he wasn’t committed to acting as my knight, I assumed he would have taken a fulltime job as a hunter. “Did you find anything, Zelda?” He asked, stepping over to lean over my shoulder. His hands clutched the backrest of my chair.

“No, nothing at all,” I mumbled, and sprawled my arms out in front of me on the table.

“Maybe it’s time to call it for the evening?” He suggested.

I frowned. “I’m not giving up yet. There are still quite a few books left that I can skim through tonight.”

“Perhaps you should try looking for answers elsewhere?”

I furrowed my brow. Did he mean to suggest the castle library? He knew I was not ready to return there yet. “I know how to find research material, thank you,” I snapped. 

He didn’t say anything in response but he stepped away from me, turning back to the door. “I’ll be at the house, Your Highness,” he said as he opened the door.

My heart sank when the door shut behind him. In my frustration, I’d resorted to taking my anger out at him, just like I had a long time ago. Back then, he’d always responded to my snaps with a ‘Yes, Your Highness.’ Now, he’d resorted to that once again out of habit, whether he remembered doing it in the past or not. I got up to apologize, poking my head out the door into the dim evening light, but he was nowhere to be found. Those Sheikah clothes camouflaged him well, wherever he had gone. I returned inside the lab and sighed, leaning my back against the door as I covered my face with my hands. My loyal knight—no, my closest friend— didn’t deserve my horrendous treatment. 

I had a few more books to read, but I only managed to skim through a few sentences of one before the guilt inside me obliterated my ability to focus on the words on the page. I noted down something the book actually included about the blood moon fueled an “ancient, evil cycle,” but I wasn’t sure if this was a mistranslation from the old languages that referred instead to the revival of the monsters. I stood up, stacked the books neatly on the corner of the table, and exited the lab.

When I arrived at the bridge to Link’s house, I could smell the smoky scent of grilling meat. I found him outside, seated at the cooking pot. He was chewing on something so crunchy I could hear him chew. He watched me approach and I couldn’t tell if he was angry at me or not. His expression was exceedingly neutral: the same one he wore most of the time a hundred years ago. Seeing it sent a wave of guilt over me. I clasped my hands in front of me, drooping my shoulders as I bowed my head in apology. “Link...I,” I began, my voice shaky as it passed my lips.

He merely patted the ground beside him. I accepted his gesture and sat down. I gazed into the deep reds of the coals below the pot. A slice of venison simmered on the heat, which I presumed would be our dinner tonight. “I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier. I will try not to project my frustrations at you...ever again.”

He shrugged his shoulders and flipped the meat over with his turner. “I remember when you were upset with me in the past,” he said. I looked down at the grass in shame. “But… then I remembered a specific time in which you came to apologize to me in earnest, and that was when we understood: we were both under way too much pressure for any teenager to bear.”

He never angered easily when I snapped at him in the past either. That was a quality that also hadn’t changed upon his loss of memory. For that, I was thankful, but it didn’t mean I could still take out my anger on him. I needed to be better with my emotions.

I needed to listen to his concerns more, just as he always looked out for me.

A particularly loud cracking sound coming from his mouth startled me as he chewed. “Goddesses,  _ what _ are you chewing? A bone?”

“Gravel,” he said, with such a straight face that I realized he wasn’t joking. A blinked at him.

_ “ _ G… Did you say _ gravel?” _

He shrugged. “The Gorons hooked me on it. I had some left from Death Mountain... Smoky flavor.”

I stared at him in disbelief and watched him swallow. I momentarily thought about reconsidering my efforts to be more respectful to him. “That...  _ cannot _ be good for your health,” I said.

“Neither is dying, yet... here I am.”

I rolled my eyes but I smiled. He’d forgiven me, at least.

“By the way, what I meant earlier was that you may find the solution to the blood moons in places other than books,” he said as he sprinkled some spices onto the meat. “Maybe while traveling Hyrule, we’ll find more information. There’s a lot to be learned out in the world.”

I considered his idea. It made sense. “That’s a wonderful plan, Link,” I said. “We’ll research when we visit all of the races.”

Link bobbed his head. “Great. I had a good hunt today, which will be more than enough food for a long journey if we pack it in with the chill shrooms I have left.”

“Excellent,” I said. “We’ll leave in the morning.”

-

I awoke at dawn and to prepare for our long journey around Hyrule. Link graciously lent me a bag that I could use to pack necessities for myself that I didn’t want to keep in saddlebags. After cleaning myself, I gathered my few belongings: soaps, clothes, hair ties, a notepad and pen for documenting research, and finally, the seashell Link had gifted to me. It was probably silly, but I’d become quite attached to the little thing. I frowned as I realized we may be riding for hours at a time. If only I had some reading material… My eyes drifted towards the collection of books on the shelf next to Link’s bed, and I crouched down next to it. Link had mentioned the books came with the house, so I assumed he would be fine if I borrowed one to read on the road. I settled on a thicker book titled ‘Legends of the Heroes of Hyrule.’ 

Our first major destination was to be Goron City. We rode all day until we made it to the Wetland Stable, where we stayed the night. The owners of the stable welcomed us after they recognized me as the Princess and even prepared a celebratory dinner for us, which Link especially enjoyed. The stable owner worried about me being dissatisfied with the quality of their beds, just as Link had seemed self-conscious about the bed he lent me. I found it amusing how people seemed to worry if I cared about the craftsmanship of a bed frame, even after being frozen in time through stasis, holding off the calamity for a hundred years without the comfort of any bed at all.

The next morning, I was beginning to worry about having enough Fireproof Elixirs packed for us to scale the volcano safely but Link assured me he could find a merchant who sold more before we hiked up. However, when we arrived at the Woodland Stable, we found many of the Gorons, including Chief Bludo, mingling there with stable hands. I was relieved when Link hopped off his horse and ran ahead to speak with a younger looking Goron first. It was Yunobo, a descendent of Daruk. Link introduced me to him as well as Chief Bludo, a large older goron who wore an eyepatch. They explained that, after Vah Rudania fired its laser, the gorons had come down the mountain to see if they could find out what had happened at the castle in hopes that the hylians at the stable may know.

“So, you did it? The calamity is over?” Yunobo asked, looking between me and Link.

I nodded, though my anxieties about the blood moons pulled in the back of my mind. “Yes, it has been sealed away. The work Champion Daruk helped begin has been finished”

The Gorons and stable hands cheered, and the owner prepared drinks for all, on the house. The Gorons crowded around us outside the stable, asking me questions about how I was feeling and if I needed anything. I should not have been surprised with their concerns for me, given how kind Daruk had always been to me, but I was grateful they were not angry at me, at least. 

“We would be honored to assist with excavating the rubble of the castle, Little Princess,” said Bludo after we sat down and talked about the restoration of the castle being the first priority. “Though, my back cannot take much lifting these days. I will have Yunobo gather a team to meet up with the Sheikah already at the castle.”

Yunobo hardened his expression and saluted at me. “Yes, m’am...er… Your Highness! We will be honored to help rebuild the Kingdom’s castle again.”

“Thank you, your service will be invaluable,” I said with a bow of my head. “When the castle is finished, we shall definitely have a celebration with all of you as guests of honor as well. There will still be much more to be done to rebuild as well but it’s a start.”

We mingled with the friendly Gorons for the remainder of the afternoon. Link went outside the stable with Yunobo at one point to do some challenge the gorons had for him in honor of Daruk. I shuddered when I heard them challenging him to eat an entire rock roast before they finished off an entire keg of the stable’s specialty drink. I thought about getting up from my conversation with Bludo to intervene on Link’s behalf but then I heard cheering and knew it was too late. Somehow… Link won.

As the sun began to set, the gorons decided to return to Goron City to share the good news with the rest of their tribe. As Bludo and Yunobo prepared to leave, I approached them. “I have a question about something I’ve been thinking about recently, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Ask away, Your Highness!” said Yunobo.

I smiled. His attitude was similar to Daruk’s, though his mannerisms were still a bit gawky in his youth. I cleared my throat and pulled out my notebook from my bag. “Do the Gorons have any tales about the blood moons? I am researching them but I seem to have hit a wall.”

“Already starting a new research project, Little Princess? I heard you were a researchy-type but didn’t realize you would start another effort so soon,” Bludo said as he scratched his chin in thought about my question. “Blood moons… it’s a time in which the great rock in the sky glows with evil energy, but we don’t know exactly why…”

Yunobo put his arms behind his head as he thought. “I always thought those scary rocks we could see to the west were the source of all evil. We would never mine from there—it would dig up old curses.”

I tilted my head. “Scary rocks?”

“He means the Breach of Demise,” said Bludo. “It is an ancient canyon, as old as time, made up of strange rocks that were bleached white with the stain of evil. It is said to be the exact place where the ancient demons came up from the underworld and crawled into our land in the beginning of time.”

I nodded. I knew of the Breach of Demise as a peculiar wonder of geography, as I’d often passed through there on my travels to the Royal Tech Lab before the calamity. “I see…”

“Sorry we couldn’t be of more help,” said Yunobo. 

I shook my head. “No, I will note that down. Any information is helpful, really. Thank you.” I wished them farewell and they proceeded up the mountainside behind the other gorons. A breeze sailed through my hair. I looked around the shadows that spread over the volcanic cliffs and fields to the south as the sun lowered in the sky. In the distance stood the silhouette of the castle, framed by the golden light of the evening. 

“Did they tell you anything?” 

I turned around, and found Link seated at one of the stable’s tables behind me. He hunched over the table. Crumbs of gravel stuck to his cheeks, which appeared greener than usual. “We talked about the Breach of Demise, so I’m not sure,” I said. I crossed my arms. “Link, you’ve made a pig of yourself... Why did you eat that big rock? It’s Goron food.”

He stared down at the cup in his hands. The bubbles in the drink fizzled. His reply dripped with remorse, and he looked like a puppy apologizing for getting into food without permission. “I could not… decline a challenge...”

“You were too caught up in the excitement. Don’t let such a challenge take you so far again that you become ill,” I scolded. Yet, I couldn’t deny my own amusement either. I watched as he took a long drink from his cup and then leaned against the table with a moan.

-

Our next destination was supposed to be the Great Deku Tree, though I decided we would wait until morning to traverse Lost Woods. One, because it would be easier in the daylight, and two, because Link began to throw up the rocks over the next few hours. The weird, scholarly side of me found the half-digested rocks fascinating, though it was equally just as painful to see Link wretch. Regardless, I helped my poor hero by chasing him down and holding back his long hair whenever he ran outside the stable without a warning.

Anything, for this boy I loved a hundred years ago...

Finally, Link recovered enough and resigned himself to preparing us a simple stew for the evening that would be easy on his stomach. He insisted on cooking, even when I offered to do it. I sat across from him with my book as he stirred the savory liquid over the fire. I had thought the book was just a simple children’s storybook, but it was a more detailed compilation of legends that had been passed down in our history. I wondered if there would be anything about the Breach of Demise in it as I thumbed through its pages. 

Surprisingly, early on in the book, I found the legend about the Demon King named Demise and his army who invaded the land through a great crack in the earth. An illustration showed a canyon burning with flames as demonic figures emerged from its depths. Demise had commanded a curse upon the land where his hatred would revive endlessly to chase down the bloodline of the Goddess Hylia and the one with a spirit of the hero. I frowned. This was why the calamity always came back: a curse. However, the chapter in the book concluded with an optimistic outlook, explaining that the seal of the Princess and the Hero could lock away the curse for thousands of years of peace at a time. 

This was a good explanation for the calamity’s revival, but it still did not explain to me why the blood moons revived monsters to terrorize my people every few weeks.

“Where did you find that book?” Link asked, snapping me out of my reading. 

“It was on your shelf,” I said. “I’m sorry, I should have asked...“

He laughed. “No worries. I never opened any book on that shelf anyways.” He grabbed a ladle and scooped a bowl full for me. The spices wafted into my nose as he held it out to me, and my mouth watered.

To my relief, Link was able to keep the stew down, and the rest of the evening was relatively quiet. Link used the time to do some training while I flipped through the book a little more. I checked the Sheikah Slate and the Divine Beasts appeared operational. We decided to retire for the night early, and I dozed off in my ‘perfectly suitable’ stable bed.

-

Hours later, I awoke with a start when Link screamed.

I unfurled from my blankets to spring to my feet, my heart racing as I jumped up. It was dark outside, probably three in the morning. The night-shift stable employee leaned over the desk in concern as I ran over to Link’s bed. “Link!” I gasped as I grabbed the lantern on the wall near his bed and cranked it lit to look for any blood or injury. 

His blue eyes flicked towards me as he rolled onto his back. He flinched when the bright light pierced into his pupils and shielded his eyes with a hand. He was tangled in his quilt, his loose hair a mess around his head, but otherwise he looked fine. “Are you alright?” I asked.

He groaned. “I’m… I’m fine.”

“Why did you yell?”

He shook his head and pulled the covers up around his nose. “Bad dream.”

I exhaled in relief. Nobody had attempted to hurt him. “About what?”

He looked away. “Just… another dream about Calamity Ganon.”

I frowned. “Oh…”

“I’m fine, Zelda. Sorry for waking you. Go back to sleep.”

I sighed and extinguished the light before I stepped back to my bed. I wished there were words with which I could comfort him but I had seen the unspeakable terror he faced as well. His wakening scream had unsettled me deeply, as it was the first time I’d heard that yell of pain since he fought with Ganon. But from the way he spoke, this had not been the first nightmare since his quest ended. In fact, he had probably been silently enduring the bad dreams all by himself as not to worry me.

The warm fibers of the stable quilt wrapped around me when I crawled back into my bed. Link had spent so much time nursing me back to health since we sealed Ganon away that I’d hardly noticed his own struggle to deal with the trauma he’d endured. His tired eyes—they were not just from his tedious journey but from sleepless nights and the terrible nightmares plaguing him. He didn’t deserve to endure such pain alone.

Before I returned to sleep, I pledged to somehow help Link process his trauma so we could both begin to heal.

-

The next day, we navigated through the Lost Woods with relative ease due to both of our familiarity with the path to the Korok Forest. The koroks celebrated our return, floating in glee around us as we approached the Great Deku Tree. Link introduced me to Hestu, a larger Korok who bobbled around us with his maracas. He was particularly excited that I could see him too.

The Great Deku Tree expressed delight when we stood before him. “I am grateful to see you smiling again, Princess,” he said in his low, majestic tone.

“Great Deku Tree, we come to let you know that the calamity has been sealed away, and we’re starting the process to rebuild,” I said.

“Indeed, and I have no doubt the Kingdom will flourish under your rule, Princess,” said The Great Deku Tree. I smiled at his comforting reassurance.

“Great Deku Tree,” Link began. He drew the Master Sword from his sheath. “I believe I need to return this sword to the forest.”

The tree hummed, which sent forth a vibration that almost cost us our balance. “Young one, I permit you to hold onto the sword for just a while longer. You may find need of it again.”

“But… the calamity was sealed,” I said. A cold shiver ran down my spine. “Is this… to do with the blood moons?”

“Do not worry, Princess,” said The Great Deku Tree. “I have full confidence that you will know what you need to do, in time. For now, worry about your plan to rebuild Hyrule Castle .” 

“I will take good care of the sword,” Link said with a nod.

“Very good,” boomed The Great Deku Tree. He continued with his slow manner of speaking. “By the way, Princess, I believe you had some words for the Hero… have you conveyed them to him yet?”

I flinched in embarassment, and Link looked at me with some confusion. “I uh… I will, soon.”

“Well, don’t keep him waiting too long…” He yawned, and we knew that meant our audience was over.

Link and I sat together on a branch of the Great Deku Tree when the koroks brought us fried mushroom dishes as gifts for lunch. My mind raced as I ate. If our business was not yet over, what could possibly be left for us to do if the calamity was sealed away? 

Link seemed to be able to read my thoughts. “Don’t worry, Zelda. There’s no way the calamity could return so soon. Maybe we need the sword for some other reason.”

I leaned my head into my hands. “I just… wish we could be done with all this,” I mumbled. Link patted my shoulder. I knew he felt the same.

“By the way, what were those ‘words’ he was talking about?” Link asked with a tilt of his head.

I felt my cheeks heating and hoped he wouldn’t notice under the shade of the branches. “Oh… I’ll tell you some other time.”

He hummed in response. I detected some suspicion in his tone.

-

Our horses flew over the Rauru Hillside with ease, and we made incredible time as we headed west. Our goal was to make it to the Tabantha Stable that night so we could make the journey to Rito Village the following day. 

We arrived at the ruins of the Royal Ancient Tech Lab in the afternoon. I dismounted my horse there so I could pay my respects. The sight brought tears to my eyes as I carefully stepped through the maze of destroyed stone walls. Charred remains of rubble snapped under my boots. It was once my favorite place to escape into with Impa after my daily training to see what Robbie and Purah were working on. During the Calamity, Corrupted Guardians had struck it with a laser barrage, and we lost an invaluable amount of research notes. I was grateful that Purah and Robbie made it out alive with some of their texts—many in Purah’s case—but the loss had been a major setback in ancient technology research. I tightened my fists as I looked over the destruction. Never again could I allow such an attack on the technological progress of our society.

Shortly after, we reached the Breach of Demise. The white peaks always reminded me of bone in texture. The horses continued, but their protesting snorts indicated a discomfort for traveling into the strange area. A cold wind howled as it seeped into the canyon around us.

“Do you think it’s true?” Link asked, surprising me with the question. He had been quiet all day.

“What do you mean?”

“The legend about Demise coming up through the crack in the earth here,” he elaborated. “And the rocks were cursed with the stain of death...”

“The Gorons seem to know the quality of rocks best, and they don’t trust this canyon.” I looked around at the bleached white rocks and frowned. “If the legend is true, then this would be the site of the first Great Calamity. Demise’s curse caused the revival of his hatred and malice, so maybe there is much residual energy here.”

“I wonder where all that hatred came from…” Link mumbled.

“He came from the underworld of demons,” I said.

Link hummed. “If only we could get rid of the hatred in the underworld. Maybe we could stop the curse forever.”

I laughed at the ridiculousness of his proposal but agreed. “Wouldn’t that be great…”

A spray of pebbles suddenly slid down the cliffside to my right. I looked up, tracing the source of the disturbance, and movement caught my eye at the top of the cliff. I saw what appeared to be a dark hood turning away from the edge. “Is… is somebody following us up there?” I asked softly.

Link immediately drew his bow from his back and aimed it up at the cliff. “Show yourself,” he demanded. His voice echoed across the canyon, but the figure did not re-emerge.

After a minute, Link pulled his reigns and directed Epona behind me. “Let’s keep moving. I’m going to follow behind you until we reach Tabantha Stable.”

I nodded. This was a defensive strategy. Link had often followed me from behind to ensure my safety from all angles in the past. I kicked my horse to speed into a gallop, and prayed we would reach the stable without incident.


	6. A Haunting Chill

#  CHAPTER 6 - A Haunting Chill

_ Link _

Zelda and I made it to Rito Village the next day. We boarded the horses in the stable nearby to keep them warm as the blustery air of an approaching snowstorm descended upon the village from the mountains. Though we did not see any suspicious figures around since the Breach of Demise, I had been alert for Yiga Clan or enemies throughout the entire night at Tabantha Stable. Zelda wrapped herself in the warm doublet that she borrowed from me as I pulled my snowquill gear over my own frame. I did not have the courage at the moment to tell her that the doublet was a gift to me from her late father, but perhaps one day I would. I gave her my Rito feather hair accessory to keep her ears warm as we climbed up into the wooden structure of the airy village. It looked surprisingly regal on her, though I suppose being a Goddess-blooded Princess also helped her pull off any style.

“The Rito are a proud race and very protective of their village,” I said to her as we approached the bridge to the pointy rock formation upon which the village was built. “We may have to convince them to send us help.” Zelda agreed with my sentiment.

The Rito guards met us at the bridge, and recognized me immediately. When I introduced Zelda, one of them offered to escort us to the top of the village to meet with Kaneli, the Rito Chief. Rito children fluttered past us as we climbed the steps, greeting me and Zelda with happy chirps. We reached the chief’s nest at the summit of the village. Every time I visited the Rito, I was always thrown off by the chief’s owl-like appearance compared with the aerodynamic look of most of the other Rito.

Many of the Rito landed and stood around us as they listened to Zelda’s conversation with the chief. I looked around to find Rito I recognized. I did not see Kass the bard, in the crowd. Perhaps he was out traveling, as usual. My attention turned to Teba when he entered onto the landing as well.

“With the calamity defeated, Hyrule now looks to rebuild,” Zelda concluded after recounting the tale of the sealing of the calamity. The Rito warriors murmured excitedly amongst each other. Zelda looked up at the Chief. “We would love to have the strong Rito Tribe as a part of this rebuilding effort.”

Kaneli blinked his large eyes as he looked down at the Princess. “When Vah Medoh fired its beam into the sky, we held our breath for the outcome,” said Kaneli. “We remained here out of caution, in case the mission failed, and we needed to defend the village. However, I am sure our people will now be pleased to once again feel at peace traversing out into the land to assist the effort.” 

Zelda straightened and nodded, believing the Chief had accepted her offer. But then Teba stepped forward. “It’s not all peaceful yet,” he said. His white wings folded carefully behind his back, where his bow slung. His leg injury from battling with Vah Medoh had healed, though I noticed a slight limp in his step. “I’ve been out on patrols, and the monsters in the valley that our warriors took out all revived during the blood moon several nights ago. We cannot simply abandon all safety precautions and go out into the kingdom without fear now that the calamity is sealed.”

Zelda bowed her head. “Yes, the monster revivals are our next direction of research…”

“That is true, Teba… The calamity will also return in the distant future as well, correct?” Kaneli asked, considering Teba’s point. “Tell us, Princess, why we should send people to Central Hyrule when it will just be fated for destruction once more?”

Zelda looked down. “I wish to prevent such a fate… I plan to further investigate how Ganon corrupted our technology with my Sheikah researchers so it can never be harnessed by him again. Thus, in the next calamity, the sealers of the darkness will not be hindered by such a corruption, and the Kingdom will live on.”

“Well,” Teba said, clearing his throat as he regarded the Princess. “I personally believe these machines were what led to the Kingdom’s downfall. We relied on them too much to fight for us, and when they failed, so did our strategy...”

I frowned. His words likely struck a sore spot in Zelda’s heart. She loved the technology’s potential but her father had scolded her constantly for faith in the machines rather than her elusive power. Zelda tightened her lips. “Go on,” she said.

Teba looked up to the peak above where Vah Medoh perched. Snowflakes cascaded down around the giant mechanical bird. “These things were infected by Ganon’s evil magic, and Master Revali never stood a chance against the terrifying wind beast that became its pilot. The calamity’s power cannot be outsmarted with these machine’s programming alone.”

I folded my arms as I remembered battling Windblight Ganon atop Vah Medoh. Teba hadn’t been able to help me in the fight but he seemed to understand the severity of the battle somehow. He shook his feathery head as he continued. “I’m not disagreeing with your plan to research the weaknesses of the machines, Princess Zelda, but I believe we need to consider all options, in case it cannot be found, to keep Hyrule safe.”

Zelda blinked, and I saw a glint of excitement in her eyes. “Of course. What do you suggest?”

Teba turned to his warriors. “Perseverance. We cannot forget the determination of real, beating hearts of all who wish to protect Hyrule. A strong defense with specially trained forces of all races, like our own proud Rito warriors. We do not have the luxury of a volcano, river, or desert to protect us from armies, so we only managed to keep the Guardians away from our lands for the last hundred years with our high-quality, specialized training.”

Zelda nodded. “Master Revali demonstrated the perseverance of the Rito to me when I selected him as Champion. He created a new fighting technique from relentless practice.” Several Rito mumbled excitedly at the mention of their beloved champion of legend. I had to do everything I could not to roll my eyes. From what I’d remembered, he’d been a jerk.  _ Especially _ to me. 

Zelda placed a hand to her chest and took a step forward. “Teba, I’d like to request the special assistance of the Rito in the reformation of our army.”

Teba’s eyes flicked to his men. They stared at him before several pounded their spears to the ground together. He looked to me for a moment, then bobbed his head as he returned his focus to the Princess. “You have our support, Princess.”

Kenali nodded in agreement. “The Rito would be honored to contribute their unique skills to the cause. We will assemble a task force for training.”

Zelda exhaled in relief. “Thank you, Chief Kenali, Teba, and all of you.”

After meeting with the Rito leaders, my fingertips felt like they froze through my gloves. Judging by Zelda’s own hand rubbing, I knew she was equally chilly. I led her to the market where we each got hot apple cider and then seated ourselves near the warmth of a fire pit on one of the landing decks. The heat from the ceramic mug warmed my chilled bones, restoring feeling in my fingers. 

I stole a glance at Zelda as she sipped her own drink. Her eyes followed the Rito children running up and down the stairs nearby. I wondered what was going through her head as she watched them playing. Snowflakes caught in her braid, and a few stood intact on her golden strands.

Surrounded by the perfection of the snowflakes drifting around her, she was still so much prettier than I ever remembered.

My staring must have been obvious because her eyes flicked to me, and she tilted her chin up with a small giggle. I quickly retracted my gaze down to my cup. 

The snowstorm intensified soon after, and I could no longer see the peaks of the Hebra region around us. The Rito suggested we weather the storm inside the village, so we gratefully took shelter in their inn. I had stayed there previously but never in a snowstorm. Fortunately, the hanging hammock beds were stuffed with Rito down which made them exceptionally warm. The Innkeeper drew down thick blinds over the curved walls to prevent the snowstorm’s chill from passing into the small inn. 

Before the sun went down, I trekked out across the slippery suspension bridge to the stable to check on the horses. To my relief, the stable hands were keeping them well sheltered and warm. I dumped an armful of baked apples to the horses for their dinner, and patted their necks affectionately.

“You sure know a lot about horses for a mere knight of the castle.”

I turned around to find the source of the deep voice. A cloaked figure sat at the cooking pot, out in the snow. I could not see his face but he wore a necklace in the Gerudo fashion around his neck—a strange accessory for a man. “I’ve always been good with them… Sorry, who are you?” I asked.

“Oh, how impolite of me, Hero. My name is Astor,” He said. He leaned forward in his seat in a makeshift bow, and I caught a glimpse of the wrinkled skin on his thin, aged hand. 

“How do you know who I am?” I asked.

Astor laughed. “I’ve been watching you and the Princess since long before the defeat of Ganon. I worked in the castle before the calamity. Though, I’ve been powerless to do anything… unfortunately...”

I nodded my head. “Pleasure to meet you. Do you need anything from us at the moment?”

He waved a hand. “Oh, no… nothing you can give to me at this time, Hero.” He stood, and mounted his own horse, a large, black mare. “I’ll be leaving before this blizzard makes the mountain road completely impassable. I suggest you hunker down for the night. Kindly take care of the Princess through this storm. We wouldn’t want her... freezing to death tonight.”

With that, he sped off on his horse. I furrowed my brow. The Gerudo symbol was embroidered onto the back of his cloak. I was fairly certain the Gerudo did not have any male members... Something about the old man did not sit right with me. I was glad to see him leave. 

Snow completely covered up the path when I began my return to the village. The tops of the Rito huts were coated with white, and I could see a few Rito flying to return to their families before the storm hit. My eyes drifted to where I knew the inn was located. Zelda and I could potentially be snowed in together for a while if the storm became particularly severe… Not that I would mind that. I decided not to worry her about my encounter with the strange man.

_ Splunk!  _

Ice water swirled into my boot and I hissed as the cold bit into my skin through my pants. In my distraction, I had misjudged the edge of the trail and accidentally planted my foot into a shallow pond of water hidden under the new layer of snow and ice. Fortunately, I wasn’t too far from the village but I knew I needed to get to warmth before my foot froze off. I started moving as fast as I could without slipping.

When I ducked into the inn’s door flap, warm air enveloped me. Zelda leaned over a cooking pot on the fire in the middle of the room. I kicked off the snow clinging to my boots and removed them before I stripped off my snow pants to hang to dry on a hook nearby. Luckily, I had kept my shorts on underneath.

Zelda glanced at my foot, reddened from the freezing cold. “What did you do?” She asked flatly, suspicion in her tone.

“I stepped in... a puddle,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to admit I’d been daydreaming and misstepped. She hummed in response. I watched her ladle soup into bowls for us. “You didn’t have to cook…”

“I decided I wanted to make dinner tonight for once. You deserve a break every once in a while too.” She smiled, and I felt my heart beat flutter momentarily in my chest.

The innkeeper had already retreated to the safety of their own home for the night. The inn was dark, except for the glow of the fire and the faint light seeping in through the small circular opening in the insulation above where the smoke escaped. I sat down by the fire and extended my wet foot as close to it as possible without burning. Zelda handed me a bowl before seating herself on the floor next to me. I blew the steam from the surface. It smelled good, though I wasn’t sure what exactly she’d thrown in it. I scooped some into my mouth and my taste buds lit up. Swift carrots, hearty radishes, bird thigh, salt, and spicy pepper gave it a kick that warmed my body from the inside. It wasn’t bad at all.

“How do you like it?” Zelda asked, leaning towards me in earnest after I took a few more spoonfuls. “It was my first time making soup since the calamity.”

I swallowed a spoonful and then grinned. “It’s pretty good. You should cook more often!”

My assessment pleased her. We hungrily ate up the rest of the soup until our spoons scraped the bottom of our bowls. My stomach bloated in the delicious warmth. Upon finishing, I moaned in satisfaction and laid back on the wooden floor. 

It was nice to let someone cook for me once in a while.

“I take it you won’t be wanting anything else tonight,” Zelda said with a giggle.

“Nope.”  _ No more food, at least. _ I tried to stifle a burp but failed. Zelda scoffed in disgust, though I could see her hiding a smile out of the corner of my eye as she pulled out the Sheikah slate to check on the Divine Beasts. I stared up at the opening in the roof. Some snowflakes entered into the hut from above but quickly melted and evaporated upon hitting the warm air from the fire.

“Do you think Teba was right about the machines?” I asked her after a few minutes of watching the snow in silence. She looked over her shoulder at me. “About… how they were the reason we couldn’t win,” I clarified.

Zelda sighed as she looked over the status of the Divine Beasts on the slate. “The reason we lost was because I didn’t unlock my power until too late.”

I rolled onto my side and felt the uncomfortable slosh of soup in my full stomach. “You did all you could.”

Zelda grew quiet after our conversation and I decided not to push it further. She retreated to one of the hanging beds and curled up under the covers with her book. I offered her a small luminous stone from my pouch to use as a reading light before retreating to the warmth of my own hammock across the room. After only a few minutes, the comfort of the soft feathers lulled me into an early sleep. Though, it was not a peaceful slumber...

-

_ Droplets sprang from the wet tall grass around me as I struggled to run towards the distant walls in desperation. Flames from laser shots burned all around me as I guided the Princess around the mangled bodies of my fallen comrades. I had to get her to safety, even though I could feel my consciousness fading by the second. Pain seared throughout the inside of my body, and my chest tingled with an alarming, unfamiliar pain. We were within sight of the safety behind the fort ahead of us when I halted.  _

_ The wall had been breached. _

_ A giant hole tore through the ramparts and a guardian stalker was attempting to climb over even as others fired towards the soldiers putting down the gate. One of the guardians’ mechanical arms grabbed a soldier stationed on top of the wall and sent him flying away. Laser beams shot in all directions as guardians attempted to fire at the remaining soldiers. There was no way these soldiers would be able to fend off the army of Guardians still approaching us from behind. _

_ There was no hope for Fort Hateno, let alone Hyrule. _

_ My eyes darted around as I searched for a safe place to run but the blue glow of the guardians’ laser eyes populated the field around us in all directions. I coughed, and more blood came out of my mouth than I expected. My balance suddenly faltered as my head spun with dizziness, and the Princess grabbed my shoulders in desperation as a guardian stalker stepped over the carcass of another behind us. It turned its mechanical head to me and the Princess. _

_ “Link, save yourself. Go! I’ll be fine…” She mumbled, pulling on the torn fabric on my shoulders. But my hearing was fading as my blood pressure dropped. My arm now felt too heavy to lift my sword. I was dying, and I had no strength left to run away. All I could do for her now was take this hit, and maybe give her a few more seconds of time to get away to safety herself. The Guardian locked its scope onto me, and I prepared to embrace death. _

_ “No!” The Princess stepped forward to shield me. I wanted to scream for her to move and run to safety, but my throat burned. She lifted her arm, and everything around us glowed in a flash of blinding light. I thought I had died in that moment, but then I witnessed the Guardians around us disengage completely. Before I could understand what happened, I collapsed. _

_ “Link, no!” I heard her voice, muffled behind the ringing in my ears. She leaned over me, cradling my shoulders onto her knees. _

_ I coughed. More blood. I knew this was it: my final moments. I looked up into her beautiful face, knowing it was the end, and that I had failed her. _

_ “Link!” _

“Link!”

My eyes flew open, and I gasped. Zelda’s face leaned over mine, her eyes filled with concern, but she was no longer covered in the stains of battle. It was dark but I saw the curved wood ceiling above. I let out a breath I didn’t remember holding. My cheeks were damp, and the corners of my eyes hot. “Zelda…” I started, but my voice came out hoarsely.

“Link, you’re crying,” she stated, placing a hand to my cheek. Her touch was warm.

I rubbed my eyes and attempted to roll away from her touch. I took in a shaky breath and coughed. “Just... another bad dream,” I grumbled.

“Link… these can’t keep waking you every night,” She sighed, and I felt the mattress swing lightly as she sat down on the edge of it beside me. I had no idea what hour of the night it was but the fire was down to its embers. She had wrapped herself up in some fuzzy wool robe she bought back in Hateno, so I assumed she had been sleeping already.

“I’m sorry for waking you... again,” I whispered.

“What was it about this time?” She asked in a soft voice. I didn’t want to answer her and closed my eyes as a hot tear escaped and rolled over the bridge of my nose and onto my pillow. I felt her touch, and her fingers combed through my bangs, grazing down across my ear in an attempt to soothe me. I resigned to her, and turned onto my back.

“Fort Hateno.”

She held onto her breath. “Oh, Link…”

My heart ached with regret as I looked up at her. “I’m so sorry, Zelda…” I said. The words choked on my tongue as tears streamed down my face.

“Shhh,” she said, wiping my cheek with her thumb, though tears continued to flow down my cheeks. “It’s over. You did everything you could...”

The tears continued as I snapped my eyes shut and attempted to calm myself. It was the worst dream about one of my own memories that I’d had by far. Zelda’s weight lifted from the hammock, causing it to rock. A moment later, she pushed onto my shoulder. My eyes flickered open. 

“Move over. I’m going to read you a bedtime story,” she said with a decisiveness in her voice. I obliged, and she slid into the hammock, nestling beside me as the fabric scooped up around us. The proximity would have flustered me if I wasn’t so upset already. For a moment I worried it might collapse, but it seemed to be designed for the weight. I blinked through my tears so I could see the open book on her lap. The pages were illuminated in green by the glow of the luminous stone she held. 

“What story?” I asked.

She flipped through the book a bit before settling on the beginning of a chapter. “I’m reading the tale about the first hero of Hyrule... The boy from the sky.”

I hummed as I rolled myself to face her. The story seemed familiar. Perhaps I’d heard it before I lost my memory. She began reading aloud, her soft voice the only sound as the snow silently fell around us outside. She spoke of the ancient hero and his quest to find his best friend, Zelda’s supposed oldest ancestor, when she fell into the unknown world below the clouds. He was said to have a majestic red bird, a guide from the Goddess Hylia, that eventually became the symbol of the Kingdom of Hyrule when they inevitably wed. It was his love for his friend that drove him to continue on, even when monsters tried to chase him back up into the sky.

Zelda shivered, so I pulled my quilt up over her knees. She nodded in thanks and continued reading. I placed my head closer to her shoulder so I could better see the illustrations in the book. I tried to focus on the story but the familiar, flowery smell of her soap filled my nose and my brain struggled to keep attention on anything but it. Her scent was like aromatherapy to me. Its presence meant Zelda was here, and she was safe. This perception alone calmed my mind, and I felt my heart rate slow as I relaxed. She continued reading about the different creatures the hero met on the earth’s surface but I barely paid any attention anymore. My eyes fluttered shut, and her voice soothed me to sleep.

It was the first time I’d ever been able to return to sleep promptly after such a terrible nightmare.


	7. Seeking Warmth

_ Zelda _

The story intrigued me so much that I didn’t realize Link had fallen asleep until I heard a soft snore from beside me. I thought to return to my own hammock, but any sudden movement would threaten to tip the hammock and surely awaken him again. I didn’t want to do that to him.

Instead, I decided to keep reading silently until I also calmed myself down more. Link’s frequent nightmares concerned me, but knowing that he dreamt of his past ‘death’ vividlu somehow caused me even greater alarm, as it was a shared traumatic memory for me as well.

I skimmed through the story at a much faster speed than I could read aloud. Several chapters later, I turned to an inked illustration of a great cistern that took up half the page. I narrowed my eyes as I read the next section: 

_ Visiting the Ancient Cistern was a transitional point for the hero, as this was his first contact with the source of all evil that would later fuel the curse of the King of Demons himself, Demise. Monsters revived in the portal to the underworld, and the hero only escaped from here by the thinnest thread of fate that pulled him back into the light. _

I paused and re-read the section. Here, in this book of old fairy tales for children, I’d possibly found more information for unlocking the mystery of the Blood Moons and Demise’s curse. I removed the barrettes from my hair and clipped them in the page to mark it. The book did not elaborate further on this aspect of the cistern, and I wondered if it still existed. I would have to do more research. I yawned and I continued reading for quite a while. At some point, I passed out, unintentionally. 

-

The faint light signaling the coming dawn peaked through a seam in the inn’s facade and cast a streak upon my face, awakening me. The silhouettes of icy snow clumps that had blown up against the structure in the night cast shadows against the fabric walls. I felt surprisingly warm given the amount of snow just outside the inn’s walls. I was about to pull the Rito quilt closer around my shoulders when I saw what I was laying against.

I flushed what I’m sure was a dark red color, and my face heated up immediately in embarrassment at the completely inappropriate, unprofessional cuddle I was currently engaged in with my former Appointed Knight. My cheek had somehow found its way into his chest, and my arm curved up around his back. His chest rose and fell softly in a slow rhythm as he slept, and his mouth hung open lazily. I dared not to flinch and wake him. Instead, I lifted my arm from his side and slowly tried to inch away but the hammock started to tilt with the shift in my weight. Afraid it would topple the both of us, I abandoned the effort and crawled back to my place next to him.

Unfortunately, the disturbance did not go unnoticed. His eyes cracked open, a flash of blue in the gray light. “Zelda…” he whispered.

“Link, I’m sorry, I fell asleep here and I... just tried to get up and it tilted,” I said.

“Isn’t it... too early to get up…?” He mumbled. His hair, loose from its usual tie, fell around his ears in a tangled mane as he turned his nose towards the ceiling and closed his eyes. I began to wonder if he was entirely awake.

“It’s not yet dawn.”

He made a sound halfway between a groan and a whine, and then reached his arm around me to pull me closer again. I squeaked. “You’re so warm though... Just a little longer,” he mumbled into my ear, and I now knew he couldn’t possibly be awake. Link would never cuddle up to me... ... _ Or would he...now…? _

I hesitated before I reached my arm around his back and carefully brought my nose back to his soft tunic, inhaling the smoky scent from the evening’s fire that clung to the fabric. If he didn’t mind the proximity, I would gladly accept his shared warmth on this chilly morning. I stole a glance up at his face. He had already fallen asleep again, which relieved me. I suspected he hadn’t slept so well in many nights since the calamity, given his recent string of nightmares. 

My hand wandered up to trail through the strands of his long, honey blonde hair that fell around his shoulders and onto the pillow behind him. The Royal Guard members were always required to tie their hair back after it became a certain length, so I’d never seen Link with it loose like this before the calamity. With his hair down, he appeared older, wilder… more like an experienced warrior. But maybe that was just another product of his quest. My gaze drifted to his cheek. At this proximity, I could see a small scar I’d never noticed before that reflected in the faint light. Just how many unseeable scars had he collected for the sake of Hyrule?

I soon dozed off again and slept for a few more hours, until the faint chirping of the winter songbirds outside awakened me. When I opened my eyes, I found Link’s blue eyes staring wide back at me. I recoiled away from him in embarrassment and covered my face in my hands.

“Good morning,” he said with a soft chuckle, adding. “It’s okay.”

“Link, I’m so sorry…”

“You already apologized,” he said.

I eyed him between the gaps in my fingers.  _ He’d been… awake? _ My face heated in an intense blush. I rubbed my eyes and shook my head back and forth. “If someone had found us like this… Oh, what would the gossip mongers think...”

Link shrugged as he yawned. “Well, they aren’t really around anymore...”

I sat up in the hammock and grabbed the book beside me from where it 

rested. Immediately, the cool air surrounded me, and I wanted to crawl back under the quilt. “We’d better prepare to go. The innkeeper will return soon to check on us.” 

“Zel… Thank you for everything,” said Link.

My heart fluttered in my chest. He’d never called me that before, even a hundred years ago. I nodded without a word, and hopped off the hammock. The floor was cold against my bare feet. 

-

We emerged from the inn to find the mountainous landscape surrounding the village blanketed in a dazzling sheet of white snow. The morning sun cast a warm glow across the snow fields surrounding the village. Icicles dangled from the pine trees around us. I stopped and took in the beauty of the landscape for several minutes. To see such undisturbed, perfect snowfall on the land was a rarity, and a sight I missed dearly while I was trapped in the castle fighting Ganon. I snapped a few photos of the scenery on the Sheikah Slate.

“Hyrule is beautiful, isn’t it?” Link said when he came up beside me. I agreed with a nod, and suggested we take a photo with the scenery. When we huddled together, he put his arm around my shoulders, which left me on the brink of a flustered daze. He stepped away, and I followed him towards the Chief’s quarters as I checked how the photo looked. It was…  _ adorable _ . My heart skipped when I looked down at the image of us together.

Before we bid the Rito farewell, Teba volunteered to fly a unit of Rito to Hyrule Field to chase out any remaining monsters that roamed the ruins from the skies. I agreed it would be a fantastic start to the Rito’s legacy in helping to defend the Kingdom once again.

We carefully navigated over the snow covered bridges back towards the stable to retrieve the horses. I only slipped on ice once, and Link caught my arm before I fell, sending me once again into a flustered state. I had no idea if he felt similar embarrassment since our little cuddle session, but I hoped the feeling would pass for me soon.

The horses traversed through the fresh snow at a careful pace, so it took much longer to descend the mountain than we planned. I didn’t attempt to make much conversation with Link, so much of the ride was silent. My mind eventually wandered back to the story I read about the ancient hero, and his descent into the underworld where monsters revived with cursed magic that somehow connected with the curse that led to the cycle of the calamity. If there was a connection to the underworld somewhere that fed the blood moons, perhaps we could find it and seal it off permanently. 

We stopped briefly at Tabantha Stable to warm up and eat a quick meal, and then continued on until we reached the Outskirts Stable to the south, where we spent the night. The weather was much milder there, to our relief, and we were able to change out of our heavier clothes. Link only talked in his sleep once that night, and I was able to reach out to him from the bed beside his to send him back into a peaceful slumber with a comforting squeeze on the back of his hand. I wondered if he would have slept better if I cuddled up to him again. The thought left me flustered again.

Our next destination was Gerudo Town. We fully replenished our water and food supply before we began down the Gerudo Canyon path. The temperature steadily rose as we neared the desert. The horses would not be able to cross the desert sands, so we stopped to board them at the Gerudo Canyon Stable. While there, Link tossed me a pair of Sand Boots he’d acquired during his journey. We decided to walk to the Kara Kara Bazaar Oasis to stay at the Inn there so we could cross the rest of the desert early in the morning before the heat became too unbearable. 

The inn was comfortable, though a bit crowded with other travelers from all over Hyrule. One of them recognized Link, and we immediately became the center of attention as people were curious about the events at the castle. I told the travelers to inform all those they passed that Hyrule was victorious, and the kingdom would rebuild. 

I recalled staying at the oasis’s inn once before the calamity as well. I’d snuck off from my entourage on my own to look for the shrine nearby when the Yiga Clan attempted to assassinate me. That was when Link jumped in and saved my life just before they could lay a hand on me. I’d been treating him awfully up until that moment, as I was jealous of his ability to so easily take up his destined task. It had been the first time I understood who Link was as a person, and not just the boy who held the Master Sword.

The next morning, we trudged across the sand towards Gerudo Town. Link followed close behind me with a little difficulty using his normal boots in the sand. Though it was morning, heat already rose into my face. I looked back at Link, and saw beads of sweat forming on his brow. I suddenly missed the snow of the Hebra region.

Link’s attention suddenly snapped up in front of me. “Look out!”

Before I knew what he was referring to, the sand slithered beneath my feet and an octorok sprang up from underground. It fired a rock at me. I held up my arms to shield myself, but Link was faster. He leapt in front of me with his shield raised, blocking the projectile from hitting us. Another octorok rose from the ground to our side. I bit my lip. I needed a weapon. Before Link could react, I grabbed the bow off his back and slipped an arrow from the quiver at his hip. I knocked it, and shot the octorok straight on. It fell, disappearing in a cloud of malice dust.

He spun around after taking care of the other octorok with his sword. “Are you hurt?” He asked, panic evident in his voice.

“No. I took care of it. Here’s your bow,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows when I returned it. Apparently he had not even noticed I’d taken it from him. “I never knew you could shoot...”

I shook my head. “I studied archery. Let me remind you who gave you the Bow of Light to use against Ganon.”

He clicked his tongue. “And yet I still used it. You had a hundred years to try out that bow on him.”

A pursed my lips and tightened my fists as he chuckled and continued walking towards the town. “I was a bit busy holding him back,” I yelled.

“I’m kidding, Zel,” he said with a small laugh and a wave of his hand.

My face heated up from the pet name, and I sighed in exasperation. 

-

Link and I arrived at the front gates of the town to find it bustling in activity inside. The guards at the gate eyed us curiously, and I could tell they did not recognize me yet as their Princess. Entering the town in anonymity tempted me, though I knew I could not gain an audience with their leader without giving them my identification. 

“Sav’otta,” I said to the guards, recalling the Gerudo morning greeting. “What is happening in town today?”

The guard on the left, a very tall, muscular Gerudo glanced back at that town. “Sav’otta. We are preparing for a big celebration today. News of the calamity’s destruction reached us via a Sheikah messenger a few days ago.”

I smiled, and stepped forward. “Wonderful. May we pass through?”

The guards crossed their spears in front of us and stared down at Link. “You may, but no voe can enter,” they said. 

“But, uh…” I stammered as I glanced over at Link. His eyes met mine and he frowned, turning away. In the chaos of the octorok attack, I had somehow forgotten the Gerudo wouldn’t let Link into their town. Yet, I’d seen Link explore the town during his quest… how did he do that before?

_ Oh, right. He had a disguise... _

“Is that Link I see out there?”

A voice carried over to us from the crowd inside. A young Gerudo, accompanied by a set of guards, walked towards the arched gate. Above her long red braid she wore the ceremonial Gerudo Chief crown, the same one Urbosa once adorned on her head, and I knew she was the one we needed to see.

“Riju!” Link grinned and waved at the girl. “Vasaaq.” 

“Vasaaq,” She greeted him when she approached us. She looked up at me for a moment, and her conclusion of my identity dawned on her eyes. “Is this…. The Honorable Princess Zelda?”

“Well, I’m not sure ‘honorable’ is the right title...” I laughed, running a hand through my hair.

“Nonsense. You have sealed away Calamity Ganon and saved us from further destruction. The party tonight is in your honor, after all! Won’t you please join me in the palace, and attend the party tonight?” Riju asked. 

“I would love to join, but... uh…” I glanced over to Link.

Riju laughed. “Your Highness, I think we can make a very special exception for entry to Link today, given this celebration is in his honor as well.” She leaned towards me and, in a low voice, added, “I already know about his little secret... He’d find his way into town, anyways.”

The guards allowed us into town, and Riju’s security surrounded us. We walked through the square, where many Gerudo were setting up decorations for the party: torches and colorful banners were going up along the walls and lanterns were strung across the courtyard. Several were already drinking and singing in merriment. A few Gerudo setting up tables looked up and seemed to notice Link, and squealed in excitement at the rare sight of a man in their presence. 

When we arrived at the palace, we followed Riju up the stairs to the balcony overlooking the plaza as she called down upon the town and announced our arrival and attendance to their party that evening. When the Gerudo cheered for us, a weight lifted from my shoulders. 

They were not angry with me.

The fear had still tugged at the back of my head. Gerudo Town was mostly untouched by the calamity’s attack, though I knew the people must have still been living in fear of a day my power ran out and Link was not there to seal the monster. 

Riju led us back into the palace to the breezy throne room, where we sat beside the large fountain in the back. I was grateful for the cool water as the desert heat had definitely intensified more, even since our arrival. A few workers brought us fruity drinks and small food plates for brunch. Link began eating almost immediately.

“So… Your Highness, what do you plan to do next?” Riju asked as she dipped her feet into the waters of the fountain.

“The castle is being cleaned up as we speak,” I said. “I seek to rebuild the kingdom back to its former glory...and beyond.”

“Of course,” Riju nodded. “Please let me know what the Gerudo can do to help. We are incredibly thankful for the sealing of Ganon.”

“Thank you, Riju,” I said. I sipped from the cup, and the refreshing hydromelon drink bubbled up against my lips. I stole a glance at Link, who had removed his boots and rolled up his trousers to cool his feet into the fountain as well. He appeared to be attempting to eat more daintily than usual as a guest in the palace.

“I do wonder, however, what the Yiga Clan will do now,” Riju said in a low voice. “They have always pledged to oppose those who are against their Lord Ganon. Now that he is defeated… will they continue with their goal?”

“Most likely. Ganon will return again someday due to the ancient curse,” I said, placing my cup down on the stone step beside me. “I have been researching the source of the curse to find out if I can prevent the calamity from occurring again.”

Riju laughed which surprised me. “You want to stop the cycle? It’s been going on for thousands of years. Nobody has ever found the solution to ending the Demon King’s curse.”

I frowned. “But have they tried searching for the source of all evil, the underworld itself?”

Link seemed surprised at my notion and paused chewing on his glazed voltfruit. Riju tilted her head. “You intend to find the source of all malice?”

My eyes drifted to the top of the fountain. The water emerged in a bubbling circle from the center of the large block and drizzled down its smooth sides in a soothing gurgle. “I’ve been doing some research about the blood moon monster revivals, and that led me to reading about the evil source of malice itself that fuels the blood moons’ power. It’s connected to the curse, which stems from the hatred bred in the Underworld.”

“I see,” said Riju. She frowned as she waved her toes in the cool water. “What have you found so far?”

“I recently read about… an ancient cistern that had a connection to the underworld beneath it,” I began, my words slow and uncertain. I turned to my bag and retrieved the book, opening it to the page I marked. “Apparently it was a place the first Hero visited before the curse was even laid on the land.”

Riju leaned back against her hands. “This cistern… The Gerudo have spoken of it before, in our own legends and childhood stories.” 

“Oh?” I raised my eyebrows, surprised that she knew about it. “Please share anything you know.”

Riju hesitated for a moment. “Thousands of years ago, our people almost all died out here in the desert. We were running low on water supply due to lack of rains, and were considering moving out of the desert. The Kingdom of Hyrule would not accept us as we were known as a band of thieves. This was true since many of us, unfortunately, had resorted to stealing goods from travelers on our borders to stay afloat.”

Link leaned forwards and placed his plate down as he took in the story. I wondered briefly if Link could recall any stories from his childhood, besides the one I had told him...

Riju continued. “Our Chief at the time traveled outside the desert in search of options for us. He came upon a mythical temple with a cistern in the Faron region, where endless purified water flowed in bountiful quantities and fed the entire ecosystem of the region. In desperation, he prayed to the ancient Gods that our land would be blessed with a magical cistern to supply us with water, and his wish was granted, as we received this precious gift of flowing water from deep underground for our fountains. However, he was not satisfied with what we had been given after seeing the lush green lands outside of our desert borders.”

“What happened?” Link asked.

Riju frowned. “He was consumed with greed. It drove him to madness, and he used his position of power to bring destruction on the kingdom in revenge for our ancestors’ banishment to the desert lands. After losing the war, we pledged to never let another like him emerge from our civilization ever again.. We set stricter rules for interaction with voes, and no voe has been born in our nation over thousands of years. That is why he was our last King. His name… was Ganondorf.”

A chill sliced up my spine, cutting through the afternoon heat. The name echoed through the throne room chamber, hanging in the air like a poisonous gas. Ganondorf was an evil man of legend. He was one who inherited the hatred of Demise and the Demon known as Ganon in his life. I knew from the old tales that he had come from the Gerudo but never had I heard this side of the story. My lips turned down into a frown. “I see…” I whispered.

“Some say his body is still out there in a cursed temple underground, waiting to feel those crisp waters on his lips once again,” whispered Riju. 

“You think so?” Asked Link.

“Maybe,” Riju hummed. “Though, he would be thousands of years old. A rotted corpse would be all that is left… so I’m not sure how much of a threat he would be anymore!”

“You would be surprised at what a skeleton arm can do in a fight…” Link muttered. 

Riju laughed and then continued. “His body is said to be hidden inside a secret temple made by an old civilization that disappeared mysteriously long ago. You may have heard of them as the Zonai tribe. We don’t know much about them, unfortunately. They never came far into our desert back then, so we have no records, and we have no idea where that temple would be located.”

_ Zonai… _ the word was familiar, as if I had read it somewhere before. I reached deep into my memory, trying to recall where I had read about it before. I pursed my lips as I tried to remember.  _ Perhaps there were Zonai books in the castle? _

I supposed I would need to return there soon, anyways...

“You alright?” Link asked me. I flinched.

“Yes, just thinking…” I nodded to the Gerudo Chief. “Thank you, Riju. Your insights are incredibly valuable.”

Riju held up her hands in defense. “I may not have much leadership experience yet, but at least I can still remember the bedtime stories my mom used to tell me before she passed!”

I blinked. Riju had also lost her mother at a young age, and her people crowned her chief as next in line, without any formal preparation, or a governing Kingdom to offer her guidance. 

She and I were… very alike in some ways. 

A passion to help her ignited deep within me. She needed the strength of the Kingdom of Hyrule behind her as well.

“Riju… I never knew your mother, but I was friends with Chief Urbosa a hundred years ago. She would be very happy to see the Gerudo in your good hands,” I said.

The Chief looked down, a distant look on her eyes. She swallowed. “Thank you, Your Highness. I am absolutely sure she would be proud of you as well.”

“And Riju, if there is anything the Kingdom of Hyrule can do to help you as well, please let me know,” I said. “It must be so difficult running this town all by yourself.”

Riju laughed. “It’s a learning process. I can only imagine what governing an entire kingdom must be like for you, Your Highness.”

I smiled. “But please… if the Yiga Clan do continue to give you trouble, let me know, and when the kingdom is more established, we can see what Hyrule can do to maintain peace.”

Riju nodded and offered a small smile. “Thank you, Princess Zelda. Please keep safe yourself too. The Yiga Clan will not be happy with you—or Link, these days.”

“I imagine they will be quite upset with us,” I said, looking over to Link. He swallowed a gulp of his drink and nodded. 

-

Riju offered us a large guest suite with several beds in the back of the palace to stay in, and we graciously accepted. I could tell Link was relieved to have a private place away from the intense gaze of the Gerudo women who were entranced by the unfamiliar presence of a man. 

The festivities were to begin in the evening after a feast. We decided to spend much of the afternoon inside, away from the intense desert sun. I rummaged through my bag, looking for something better to wear to the event than my standard research clothes. I wanted to look decent: It was the first party I had attended in a hundred years, after all. I had packed the dress I bought in Hateno Village but it felt a little too plain for a Gerudo celebration in our honor.

“Try this if you want,” Link said, tossing me a bundle of fabric.

“What’s this?” I asked, catching it. My eyebrows rose when the scandalously small green top with ruffled blue sleeves, purple sirwal, and a blue veil and mask unfurled in my hands

“Traditional Gerudo Vai garb,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. 

I blinked and stared at him across the room. A smirk tugged at my lips. “This was… your disguise, wasn’t it?” His cheeks burned in an adorable shade of red in response. I giggled. “From what I remember, it looked quite good on you... But what will you wear?”

“I have Desert Voe armor that would match with yours quite well if you decide to wear that...”

I smiled. He was suggesting we go to the party with matching outfits. “How cute. I’ll try this on, if you’ll give me a minute.”

Link stepped out of the room to allow me to change. The sirwal fit snugly around my hips and the cropped top fit me only after loosening of the fabric ties in the back a small amount. I had never worn an outfit publicly that exposed my back or abdomen so much before as it was never deemed an appropriate style for the modest, strict wardrobe of Hyrule’s Princess. I supposed the judgment of what I could wear was entirely up to me now, however. I decided not to use the fabric mask but clipped the veil to the back of my hair. Using the Sheikah Slate camera as a mirror, I brushed my long hair free of tangles. It was becoming increasingly difficult to manage.

I spun around to ensure everything was secured well enough for dancing before I called Link back inside. When he entered, his eyes widened and he froze, mid-step, in the doorway.

The silence stretched between us as he continued to just stare at me without a word. “Well? How do I look?” I asked. I stepped around in a spin so he could see all the angles of the outfit. When I looked back at him, his face had reddened considerably.

I felt my cheeks heat up. Maybe...this outfit  _ was _ a little much for a Princess of Hyrule...

Link cleared his throat finally before he nodded. “Really good,” he said before he crouched down over his bag against the wall, retrieving his own Desert Voe outfit. He immediately began stripping off his tunic to change. 

I squeaked in embarrassment and covered my face. “Goddesses, give me a warning before you need to strip down, Link!”

When I heard him finish, I peeked at his new outfit. He wore only Gerudo trousers, sandals, and a green metal spaulder on his left shoulder that left his chest exposed. Fortunately, his shoulder wound appeared to be healing nicely. His hair was tied up on top of his head like a miniature palm tree with the addition of a band that looped around his forehead. It was a very different style for him, though I did not mind. It was still very handsome. I was sure all the Gerudo outside swooning over him would not mind his look either. 

...The thought sent an unfamiliar pang of jealousy through me. 

  
  



	8. The Hero Gets "Motivated'

_Link_

A long table, filled with meats, fruits, and all kinds of dishes, spread out in front of the Gerudo Palace. As the sun began its descent and the edge of the heat cooled away, Riju called the citizens to feast. Zelda and I accompanied her. Many of the younger Gerudo were staring up at me constantly. Every movement of mine was captured by their relentless gaze. It was… a little unsettling. I tried not to make eye contact with any of them. _What if some remembered me from when I explored the town in disguise?_ The thought made me anxious.

Zelda and I took plates and sat next to Riju in the central square along with her guards. I relaxed a little when many of the women began striking up conversation with Zelda, and took the opportunity to eat my food.

“I never realized voe ate so hastily!” I heard a Gerudo gasp in awe from behind me. 

_Great, they were still staring at me._

Riju leaned over to me. “I’m sorry for all the attention, Link. A lot of these folks have never seen a voe before. This is a once-in-a-lifetime break in our no-voe rule. You’re much more than just the Hero right now in their eyes.”

I swallowed a bite of hydromelon. “Maybe I should have remained undercover.”

Riju laughed. “Your cover would have been blown very quickly in a Gerudo party. You’ll see.”

The sky transitioned to a brilliant orange as the sun dove towards the sandy horizon. We finished our plates soon after. I watched one of the Gerudo climb up on a ladder against the city wall to begin lighting the lanterns hung on the string across the courtyard one by one with a small torch. into the wall on the opposite side of the plaza.

A Gerudo came up to us and shoved a goblet into my hands as she and other Gerudo passed out drinks to everyone. “Noble Pursuits, on the house tonight!” said the woman. I recognized her as the bartender of the Noble Canteen.

Riju raised her goblet, and the crowd of Gerudo turned to her and followed suit. I was a little surprised to see she had a drink, though I supposed she was close to my age—well, my mental age, at least—which was just barely old enough to drink legally in Hyrule. “To Hyrule, and the honor of all those who fought, and died, for it,” she said. 

Zelda raised her goblet and I followed the gesture. Her eyes glazed over with the sadness of her grief I was growing increasingly familiar with. I leaned into her side lightly to comfort her before Riju slowly lowered her arm and brought her cup to her lips. Zelda and I followed her motion. The icy, bitter liquid fizzed as it passed down my throat but oddly still warmed my stomach upon settling. I recalled the drink having a reputation for its potency and ability to give one much ‘motivation.’ The town fell silent as everyone sipped from their cups in respect.

After a moment, Riju stood. She raised her arms and called out to the crowd. “And now… we will cherish our new beginning together. Let us celebrate!” 

A band of musicians on the palace balcony began playing a loud, boisterous song. In a flurry of motion, many Gerudo jumped up to dance in the square. Several Gerudo downed the rest of their cups in seconds. Older members of the tribe swayed their shoulders lightly to the music while the younger women moved their arms and hips a little more vigorously as they excitedly celebrated together.

Zelda remained seated, her goblet in her hands, watching the crowd. A small smile was painted on her lips. I stayed at her side.

“Princess Zelda, go dance! You’re very well protected here, so let loose a little!” Riju said with a tap on her shoulder.

Zelda giggled. “I will watch for now. I’m not used to such… energetic dancing.”

“As you wish,” said Riju. 

Three young Gerudo approached us, giggling madly. Judging by the faded look in their eyes, I assumed they had drank even before the party even started. They greeted us, bowed in respect to Riju and Zelda, and then turned to me. “Would… the Hero like to dance with us?” One of them managed to ask in between giggles.

“Oh, no thanks, I need to stay by the Princess.” I declined them without a second thought. 

Zelda raised her eyebrows at me in surprise, then shook her head and addressed the Gerudo. “Link is absolutely free to dance with you. Like Riju said, we’re well protected here tonight.”

“Zel—“ I started. 

She waved me off with a hand. “This is your party too, Link.”

I bobbed my head. “Oh...alright,” I said with a sigh. The young Gerudo giggled. 

Riju cackled. “Link, just leave your equipment up here with me. Finish up that drink!”

I supposed I would not wander too far away from Riju’s guards in case something happened. I removed the equipment from my back and almost spilled my goblet when I set it down. I flicked my attention back towards the crowd of crazed Gerudo women I was about to enter and narrowed my eyes. 

After a big gulp, I set the empty goblet on my seat. Zelda’s eyes widened in either amusement or surprise, I wasn’t sure which. “Join me when you’re ready,” I told her before walking away with the Young Gerudo.

For just a moment, I wondered if it was a bad idea to enter into a crowd of women as the first man who had openly stepped into their town in probably thousands of years. However, the Gerudo cooed and clapped at my arrival into their dance mob and began jumping excitedly around me, and I decided it wasn’t bad at all. 

I raised my arms with them to the music. Like Zelda, I had no idea how to dance like a Gerudo. An older Gerudo grabbed my arm and showed me how to step to the beat of the song with a point of her toe and a tap of her heel. I followed her movements and soon caught on to the footwork. She chuckled in delight as I added a few sways of my own to the dance. 

It wasn’t so difficult, after all... Or maybe the extra ‘motivation’ was just starting to kick in and help me out...

The Gerudo server from before handed me and several other Gerudo another round of drinks: more Noble Pursuits, on the house yet again. The Gerudo jeered and tipped their cups back. I gulped down the refreshing, icy cold drink over the next few minutes and felt the comforting warmth spread up through my stomach. Something in the back of my head reminded me that the Gerudo drink was formulated for a much larger, muscular Gerudo woman, and not a smaller Hylian like me, but the worry faded away quickly. 

I looked around, seeking out Zelda, as the music switched to a slightly faster beat to the sound of a flute. She was still seated, far away, talking with Riju. I wondered if she would ever come join me and frowned. This was _our_ party, after all.

The Gerudo began clapping to a new rhythm and I followed their lead. Their dancing changed to yet another style, this one involving more hip swaying along with the footwork. I laughed as I attempted to copy the dance style which inadvertently caused a ripple of giggling from the young Gerudo around me. I wondered where the three that led me over to the crowd had gone. They seemed to have disappeared somewhere as Gerudo fought to dance near me.

The next song was a kind of samba. Did I even know how to samba? Apparently, I did. The knowledge must have been locked away somewhere deep in my head, because when I accepted a dance with the Gerudo girl closest to me, we began stepping around the center of the lively crowd to the beat of their hoots and jeers. A few girls traded places to get a chance to dance with me and I didn’t mind at all, as I was just having a good time. I continued stepping without missing a beat. 

My vision started to blur, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of the drink or another memory invading my head. The spinning of the Gerudo’s skirts shadowed into spinning gowns in a ballroom lined with stone arches and banners, somewhere long ago. I furrowed my brow, seeing one of the dresses in a royal blue in color. Its owner spun a bit shyly around me...

“Hero!”

I snapped out of my fog, and looked over my shoulder. The older Gerudo woman who had taught me the steps pointed towards the palace. “The Princess has returned inside,” she said over the music

“Without even one dance?” I scoffed before stopping mid-step. I gave a respectful bow of my head to the Gerudo girl I was dancing with before maneuvering out of the crowd. I stumbled slightly before I found my way, with a little difficulty, back to Riju.

“I can see you’re fully enjoying the celebration,” Riju said. Amusement glinted in her eyes.

I glanced around, barely registering Riju’s comment. “Where’s Zelda?” I asked, grabbing my equipment from the ground beside her.

She giggled. “I tried to convince her to join you but she didn’t seem ready yet. She went to take a break inside.”

I growled and began stalking towards the palace. There was no way I would let Zelda miss out on dancing at her own party.

-

I took a wrong turn in the dimly lit palace, which was probably impressive considering the extremely limited options I had to take, and found Zelda right as she arrived into the guest suite. “Zelda!” I called out to her.

She pivoted on her heel and her eyes widened in surprise. “Link? Aren’t you supposed to be at the party?”

I nodded as I stepped into the room. It was lit only by the small lantern by the door. “Yes, and so are you. This is in honor of your victory as well.”

“I thought you’d be dancing with all your Gerudo women late into the night,” she muttered sarcastically.

I put my hands on my hips. “You’re jealous?”

She scoffed. “Of course not. I was very happy to see you enjoying yourself.”

A smirk threatened to crawl on my lips. I could tell she was denying it. “Jealous,” I affirmed.

She shot a look at me. “I am not. I could have joined you at any time.”

I shrugged. “I was out there waiting.”

“Oh, I’m not versed in that kind of dance…” She looked down at the tiled floor, then added. “Plus, it was hardly a victory for me, considering I am the one who failed in the first place… I… I don’t really deserve a celebration like this.”

I frowned, then stepped close to her. She looked up as I clasped my hands lightly on her shoulders, shifting my weight from one leg to the other. “How many times do I need to reassure you… that you did everything just _absolutely_ perfectly?” I said. “You sealed away GANON! You deserve to celebrate that for at least one night! Princess...”

She gave me a small smile. “Link… just how much of that stuff did you drink?”

I rolled my eyes. “It doesn’t matter... Come dance with me! I’ll teach you the steps first...” I demonstrated the basic foot movements to her on the tile. She giggled at my motions, which were admittedly a little messy.

“Alright, teach me, Link. It’s best I learn it with you first.”

I stepped closer to her and held my hands out for her. With a bit of difficulty, I communicated the proper sequence of steps to her. The faint hum of the low instruments outside guided our tempo as we danced privately in the room. She caught on very quickly. I huffed. “You lied. You’ve danced before,” I said.

“Ballroom dancing is not quite the same as this style,” she said with a small grin. I buzzed my lips in response. When the song outside changed to a saucier tone, I added a few shoulder movements to the steps, which made her laugh. 

We stepped together for quite a few minutes until I twirled her around and she landed in a hug against my chest, She giggled as I wrapped my arms around her back to return the embrace. _Since when did we hug so freely like this?_

“Thank you for the lesson, Link,” she mumbled into my shoulder. She pulled back to look at me, still clinging onto my midsection. The flickering light of the lantern reflected in her green eyes. They were a deep oasis in the middle of this desert. Something in my brain tugged at the corner of my mind when I gazed at her face from this proximity. I’d seen it before. Suddenly, it clicked in my head.

I reached out and combed a loose strand of golden hair behind her ear. “Princess... we have danced before, haven’t we?”

She blinked and her eyes widened. “You… you remember that?”

I looked up in thought. “It was...at the castle, right?”

She nodded slowly. “It was at a diplomatic event back when you were assigned to the Royal Guard.”

I leaned forward as I dug far into my broken memory. “You... were wearing a blue dress.”

“Yes, the traditional color of the Royal Family,” she said with a nod. “We were about fifteen years old.”

I furrowed my brow as the memory emerged in my mind. “I somehow summoned the courage to ask you for a dance... I was shocked when you accepted, since you always seemed to be annoyed at me.”

She sighed. “I was jealous you hung the sword of your destiny so easily on your back.”

“Yet, we still danced.” I said, leaning my forehead against hers and closed my eyes. “For... quite some time that night.”

“Because… I...I wanted to know more about you,” Zelda said in a low voice.

“And I wanted to know more about the Princess,” I said, reaching up to push another strand of hair away from her face. “So I kissed her on the hand.”

“Link, you never did that,” she snapped her head back with a giggle.”I believe you drank a little too much Noble Pursuit.”

I clasped her right hand in mine and lifted it, bowing slightly as I kissed the back of it. Her eyes flitted away to the ground but she failed to hide the bashful smile on her face. “How noble,” she said with a faint hint of sarcasm.

“You look really good in that outfit, by the way,” I said.

“You informed me of that earlier, Link, but thank you,” she said with another giggle. Her cheeks blushed pink.

“Just wanted to say it again. You can keep it for future nights out with me,” I said with a wink, which made her scoff. She was right—those Noble Pursuits were _definitely_ twisting my words. I straightened up, still holding onto her hand. “Now… would you like to return to the party to dance more with me?”

She sighed and her lips twitched into a smile. “I suppose.”

I led her to the door and the warm evening air welcomed us outside again. I loosened my grip on her palm as we walked towards the plaza, but she didn’t move to let go of my hand. In fact, she laced her fingers into mine as we walked. I didn’t mind this at all.

The Gerudo crowd cheered when we approached, parting so we could stand in the center of the group. Everything around us seemed to fade away when I danced with her, and it wasn’t due to any amount of Noble Pursuit. But seeing her finally begin to accept her win over the darkness truly made the night shine for me.

I had no idea how long we danced before Zelda leaned her head against me tiredly, and I wrapped my arms around her shoulders as we swayed back and forth amongst the joyful crowd. _Since when did I feel so comfortable doing this?_

“Are you done for tonight?” I asked into her ear.

She hummed into my shoulder. “Just a few more minutes.”

I smiled and lowered my arms to clasp my hands around the small of her back. We swayed into the relaxed steps of a slow dance as the music softened a bit. Thousands of stars twinkled overhead. I wanted to stay in that moment forever. 

Finally, Zelda leaned her tired weight into me, and I knew it was time to lead her back to the palace. I took her hand and led her away from the crowd. We snuck away unnoticed, as most of the partiers at this point in the night were far beyond their sober limits.

“What a fun night,” she said when we reached the guest suite.

A warmth filled my chest. “Glad you enjoyed yourself,” I said. 

When we reached her bed, I loosened my fingers from hers so she could prepare for the night, but she gripped onto them. I was about to ask what was the matter when she jolted my hand backwards towards her. Before I even opened my mouth, she leaned towards me and pecked my left cheek with a very quick but soft kiss. 

“Thank you for coming back for me... Like you always have, of course,” she whispered when she pulled away.

My brain somehow lost all knowledge of words in the Hylian dictionary at that moment. Instead of saying anything in response, I nodded and smiled at her before turning away to prepare my bed for the night.

I didn’t think I would sleep a wink after that development, but all the dancing and drinks luckily put me out quickly that night.


	9. The Blood Sacrifice

_ Zelda _

The following morning, a Gerudo palace worker knocked on the door and slipped an envelope underneath. It was a message from Purah, letting me know that she wished for us to come see the uncovered Sheikah Tower Mainframe at Hyrule Castle. 

I took a deep breath as I sat against my bed. Link stirred from his place across the room. I supposed it was finally time to head to the castle and see the full extent of my home’s destruction at last.

Link and I bid Riju and the Gerudo farewell. Riju promised to have the Gerudo craft new banners and textiles as gifts to supplement the reconstruction of the castle and outposts. I was grateful for her help, and I knew the Gerudo were behind me now.

All the races had pledged their support of the kingdom. There was no stopping Hyrule’s reconstruction efforts.

-

Our horses trotted through Gerudo Canyon towards Central Hyrule. As the day progressed, the humidity worsened, and I wondered if a rainstorm was actually brewing in the mountains around us. The soothing warmth radiating off the canyon’s rocks made me want to nap, though I knew that was not a wise idea on horseback. Neither of us had slept for very long before we needed to wake up to leave that morning, and I was pretty sure Link had a terrible headache from the Noble Pursuits, though he hadn’t said a word about it. He kept rubbing his temples every few minutes, a habit I’d never seen him do before, which made me suspicious.

We were almost through the canyon when the ground beneath us vibrated. I tilted my head. “What is that?” 

Link hummed in thought from behind me. “Earthquake?”

A large boulder suddenly rolled down from a cliff in front of us. My horse whinnied, rearing up in surprise as I struggled to keep my grip the reigns. A strange laugh rang out from behind us. I snapped my head around but something clawed up at my midsection. In another moment, a dark fabric covered my eyes, and I was yanked off the saddle.

“Zelda!” Link yelled from somewhere behind me. My sight was completely blocked, so I only heard the grating of metal as he drew his sword to fight whatever was attacking us.

Hands gripped onto my arms and legs. I struggled to squirm free. The clatter of my horse’s galloping hooves on the canyon floor faded in the distance as my steed bolted away. My head spun with disorientation as I was carried up and out of the canyon. I pulled with my arms and kicked, attempting to break free of the kidnapper’s grip. I opened my mouth to scream but another hand covered it, muffling my attempt. 

We were moving quite quickly, at a speed no mere Hylian could run with. I continued struggling for several minutes until the screeching sound of a gate signaled I was to be tossed onto a hard floor. The back of my head bounced off a sharp stone and a hot drip of blood run down my forehead when I rolled to my side. The impact knocked me out.

-

I had no idea how long I laid unconscious. Upon waking, I shook my head until the fabric tied around my eyes fell down, and I could look around. I was in some kind of cell. Captured by whom, I was not yet sure, as they had left the chamber for the time being. The room was dark, apart from a flickering torch mounted on the wall opposite my cell. My bag slumped against the outside of the cell. I attempted to stand but the jingle of metal made me pause. My hands were shackled together with a metal chain.  _ Wonderful. _

I spat blood from my lips. My head ached, but seemed to have stopped bleeding for now. My eyes darted around the room once more as I tugged at the chains bounding my hands. A large symbol, crudely painted in red on the door to the left, caught my eye. It was an upside-down eye: the symbol of the Yiga Clan. 

I growled in annoyance.  _ Of course _ , the Yiga Clan were still after me even after all these years. I wondered what they could possibly want with me now, except maybe a final revenge for defeating Ganon...

I attempted breaking the chain on the bars of my cell by pushing the metal chain against it. No luck. A few minutes later, I heard footsteps. The door opened abruptly, and sure enough, three Yiga members waltzed into the room. Their red uniforms were stark against the rocky walls behind them. A large, muscular member led them towards my cell. I frowned at them.

“Welcome to our hideout, Your Highness,” the large man said. 

I frowned. “This is hardly any way to hospitably welcome your Princess after her hundred year absence.”

“My apologies,” he said, though there was not a drip of sorrow in his deep voice. “We’ll make sure you’re comfortably resting soon.”

“What do you want with me?” I demanded.

One of the Yiga lackeys cackled. “The Princess has no idea why we would be angry with her!” She said.

“It’s not like she stood against our Lord Ganon or anything,” said the other, shaking his masked face.

“We received word from our scouts that you and the little hero were in attendance to the celebration of the Desert Women,” the Yiga leader said, turning to me. “We decided that now was the perfect time to perform our sacred ritual to bring Lord Ganon’s power back.”

“Sacred ritual?” I asked, pulling once again on my restraints. The chain clattered against itself but did not bend. My heart sunk.  _ Where was Link? Was he captured as well? _

“A blood sacrifice, to Lord Ganon,” continued the large Yiga. “It is the only way to summon the amount of malice from the Underworld to fuel a new cycle of calamity... The blood of the descendent of the Goddess Hylia would summon enough malice to even revive the calamity tomorrow!”

I stopped fidgeting with my chain. My brain spun. “You mean the calamity only revives when malice compounds?”

“Sooga, let’s just kill her already!” Whined the female Yiga lackey.

The leader, Sooga, laughed. “It would be most honorable if she understands the true value of her sacrifice before she dies.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. With every question, my eyes searched the room for anything I could use to break free. “How does this malice get into our world from the Underworld?”

“There is an ancient place in Hyrule, where our world flows into the waters of the Underworld, and vice versa,” Sooga began. “Our clan has tried seeking it out for ages without success.”

_ The ancient cistern, _ I thought. 

“It is said that an incarnation of the Great Demon King once traversed to this secret place where our world connected with the waters of the Underworld. His heart was filled with Greed, so the malice there linked itself entirely to his very being. Upon his defeat by an ancient hero, the Gods tried to hid away his body underground, and held a seal to his corpse to prevent it from reviving. But the seal could not fully stop the Demon King’s will... Thus, his body still survives and bleeds malice, and it drifts up into our world... Little by little, this malice builds up and forms into the beast of the calamity repeatedly,” said Sooga.

A chill pierced my spine. The story aligned so closely with the tale Riju had told me about…  _ Ganondorf. _

“It is a very slow process,” commented the male lackey with a droop of his head.

“Yet, the Seer guy says we can speed it up!” Said the female with a clench of her fist.

“Malicious events, such as demonic sacrifices, supposedly draw more of this malice energy out and into our world at a rapid pace,” said Sooga with a nod. 

I yanked on the chains bounding my hands again. “If your Lord Ganon is so powerful, why hasn’t he just broken the seal on the corpse himself?”

I could tell Sooga was growing impatient with my questions. “The divine seal holds very strong,” Sooga grumbled.

“Enough chattering, let’s do it!” The female Yiga drew her sickle. The metal glinted in the torch’s light. She opened the door on my cell and stepped inside. “We’ll go to the Mighty Altar!”

I was out of time. I desperately tried to summon my powers but felt nothing. They were exhausted now, and I couldn’t even make a flash of light. The Yiga foot soldiers gripped my shoulders hard and shoved me towards the door. I fought to remain in place but they smacked me to move forward.

I suddenly remembered the Sheikah Slate at my hip. I glanced down beneath the cover of my hood. 

_ It was still there!  _

In their haste to capture me, the Yiga had failed to disarm my person. I knew they weren’t a very smart or organized group but this was quite the oversight...  _ If I could just activate the magnesis rune... _

Something metallic clanged in the corridor beyond the door, The Yiga soldiers grabbed my arms, holding their sickles to my neck. Sooga paced between me and the door.

Link burst through the door and I gasped. His champion tunic was stained across the chest in a fresh splatter of blood. He flicked the Master Sword at the ready. His eyes, filled with the wild energy of battle, met mine briefly before he glared at Sooga.

“One more step, and your beloved Princess is dead,” Sooga commanded, drawing his katanas. The Yiga tapped their sickles close to my throat. I swallowed. Link froze in place, tensing his shoulders.

“Drop the sword,” demanded the Yiga to my left.

Link hesitated. I pursed my lips and reached down to my side, tapping the slate on my hip with the exposed skin on my wrist. Its screen glowed to life with a flurry of beeps, startling the Yiga beside me. I activated the magnesis rune and the Yiga’s weapons immediately flew out of their hands and floated above us. The metal shackles on my hands loosened and slipped from my fingers.

Link utilized the opportunity to leap at Sooga. I shoved the Yiga away from me with my shoulders, sending them down to the ground. I grabbed the Sheikah Slate and found the stasis rune, casting it and freezing all of the Yiga in place. I snatched my bag from the ground and jumped around Sooga’s frozen body before tossing a remote bomb under it. I reached out and took Link’s hand in mine. “Get me out of here!” I ordered him as we went through the door. I detonated the bomb behind us, and it shook the corridor with its impact.

We sprinted up a staircase and through a winding tunnel. We turned through a few sharp turns and narrowly avoided the Yiga Clan’s odd spike traps. At one point, we passed a room filled to the brim with Mighty Bananas. I had no idea how Link knew where he was going. 

We burst from the underground hideout and fled into what appeared to be an open air arena with a huge hole in its center. I grimaced as cold raindrops assaulted my face. Rain poured from the sky. We scaled up a short, slippery hill and continued our sprint east into the mountainside. We ran for several minutes, shielded only briefly by the overhang of the dramatic towering mesa features around us. We came to an abrupt halt when the topography dropped steeply and the cliff stopped our movement. I looked down at the mud surrounding my boots. “They could be tracking our footsteps!” I gasped.

“We can hide there,” Link said over the drone of the rain, pointing to the blue glow of a small structure in the distance. Through the curtain of rain, he pointed towards a Shrine at the base of what I believed was Satori Mountain. 

“Link, that’s too far to run. They’ll catch up with us long before we make it!” I said.

“Not if we fly,” Link said, sheathing his sword. He unfolded the paraglider from his back and stepped in front of me. “Hold on!”

I had never tried flying on a paraglider along with someone else before but I had little time to question the logic. I grabbed the paraglider as tightly as I could, wondering how Link planned to get us both off the ground at the same time. I squealed after he knelt down briefly, and a strong gale appeared from the ground around us. It was Revali’s gift to Link, an updraft that filled the paraglider’s sail. The winds sent us far into the sky, and I clung to the paraglider for my life. 

My weight and the beating rain dragged the paraglider down, but we were still able to sail over the majority of the green valley below and cover more distance than we could have on foot in such little time. Link guided us over the trees and we prepared to land in a small clearing. “This will be rough!” He called to me over the wind.

Rough it was, indeed. Upon landing, I immediately barreled into Link’s back and the paraglider flew from our hands. We toppled over into the damp grass beside each other. I moaned as the tender spot on my head contacted the ground once again.

Link hastily helped me up, and we ran through the muddy grass into the Mogg Latan shrine at the base of Satori Mountain. The Sheikah Slate glowed in response to our entry, and the circular floor descended us into the chamber below.

-

I wasn’t sure what I expected from the inside of the shrines, but it was beyond my imagination. I fell to my knees on the smooth floor to catch my breath and stared up at the structure around me. The shining, metallic finishes and constellation sculptures on the walls reflected the blue light of all the sconces around us. The floor narrowed as it stretched into the shrine over a deep void below. Link said he had already visited here before and completed a challenge left for him by the monks to strengthen his mind and body. 

“We’ll be completely safe from the Yiga Clan down here. Nobody can enter without that Sheikah Slate,” said Link as he wrung out rainwater from the ends of his hair and flicked mud from his tunic. “Tomorrow, we’ll find the horses, wherever they bolted. I’m hoping they found their way back to the stable since we were almost there…”

“They were uninjured?” I asked, wringing the rain out of my long locks. They were rather disorderly after all the adventures today.

He nodded, and his damp bangs clung to his forehead. “They got away. The Yiga tried to kidnap me too but I defeated the ones that jumped me. Unfortunately, Epona bolted. I climbed up the canyon’s wall and chased the Yiga all the way back to their hideout.”

I frowned as the weight of the situation sunk in. We had no food or extra supplies on us beyond the pouches on our person. “I’m so sorry, I never heard or saw them coming for us… I cannot thank you enough for coming to free me in time.”

He shook his head. “I blame myself, Zel. My senses weren’t a hundred percent... I let my guard down, and they captured you. I’m sorry too.”

I sighed. “Perhaps we shouldn’t travel right after staying up too late partying...”

“Maybe.” He offered a small smile and crouched beside me. “Speaking of… how’s  _ your _ head feeling?”

I reached up and touched the back of it, flinching with gasp when my fingers touched the tender spot where the rock in the Yiga hideout had sliced into it. “Painful,” I said through a strained voice.

Link reached into his pouch and pulled out a small red heart elixir vile. “Here, this will heal your internal wounds.”

I frowned. “You’re the one with the tunic covered in blood. You take it.”

“You haven’t seen your reflection. Besides, a lot of this isn’t mine.”

I shuttered at his implication, then glanced down at the glossy, reflective floor below me. I gasped at the sight. Sure enough, my forehead was stained with old blood from the head injury. “Alright…give it to me.”

I downed the elixir relatively quickly, and Link offered me some potion-infused cream he luckily had in his pouch for my head injury as well. Elixirs never tasted very good, but I felt the healing effects begin almost immediately. I was thankful Link carried so many on hand. I needed to get into the habit of carrying them around again. 

Faintly, the drum of the steady rain echoed from the ceiling of the entry tunnel behind us. Link used the time to stretch his arms out and hung up his tunic on the ledge near the entry to dry near my wet hood. I set my chin on my hands as I stared up at the decorated walls from my seat on the small metallic staircase. “The Yiga actually told me some interesting information about malice,” I said after a stretch of silence.

“Oh?” 

I relayed the information I learned about the malice corpse to Link and my thoughts regarding the connection to the cistern in my book. Link fell quiet as he sat down beside me on the step and listened. When I finished, he clasped his chin in thought. “What do you think this means, Zel?”

I stared at the floor. “In order to stop the curse of malice, we have to find this corpse and destroy it… and prevent any drastic accumulation of malice in the meantime. For the sake of Hyrule.”

He didn’t respond but continued staring in thought out into the shrine. I glanced over at his face. There was a spot of mud left on his cheek. I reached out to it and rubbed it away with my thumb before I thought about what I’d done without prompt. Link didn’t seem bothered by my touch, however.

“So this is what the Great Deku Tree was talking about…” He mumbled after a minute. “Our unfinished business.”

I tapped my fingers against the floor. The sound echoed across the large room. “Yet, we still have no idea where to look for such a cursed corpse.”

“I traveled all across Hyrule on my journey, and I found a lot of strange ruins,” Link said. “Any one of them could have led to such an evil place. It could take years to locate anything...”

I sighed. “I suppose more field research will be in order, then...”

Link glanced over at me. “Princess, you know you have a Kingdom to rebuild, remember? That’s why we’re even out here in the first place.”

I leaned back against the landing on the steps and grunted. He was right. The calamity was sealed for the time being. I needed to prioritize the resurgence of Hyrule over my research tasks. “You’re right,” I said, covering my face with my hands. “The research can wait a little longer.”

He patted my knee reassuringly. “One thing at a time,” he said before standing up and drawing his sword to start his evening training session. I wondered if that had been his new mantra since waking up to a great mission without any prior memories.

I mindlessly watched him practice his swings as I listened to the drone of the steady rain outside. Before the calamity, Impa and I often enjoyed sneaking into the castle courtyard to watch the young knights train—especially when Link was out there topping all his comrades in practice. I loved to watch his intense focus and lightning speed even when I was still angry with him over his apparent ease of destiny. 

My eyes drifted down to my hands on my lap. Those days in the castle were long gone, and now the power I’d fought to unlock for the majority of my life before the calamity had all but faded away, its task completed. I frowned. Link was still training throughout all of this, for some unspecified purpose I wasn’t sure about. He must have had ideas about quests he would need to travel on in the future. Or, maybe he had faith I would bring up Hyrule to rise again... Perhaps it was best not to dwell on trivial things such as the monsters and blood moons anymore, and just focus on the Kingdom. 

“I wonder what my father would think of our plans...” I said aloud, more to myself than to Link.

Link paused and sheathed the sword. He stared at the wall for a moment before turning. His eyes met mine. “His final wish?”

I snapped my head up. “What?”

He sheathed the sword and took a step closer to me. “Would you like to know... what your father thought?”

I narrowed my eyes and stood abruptly at the implication of his words, taking a step back. “Link… what are you talking about?” He looked down and seemed hesitant to continue. “Link… Tell me,” I whispered. 

“After I woke up, in the Shrine of Resurrection, I… I met your father… Well, it was more like your father visited me.”

I sucked in my breath with this new information. I remembered that Link had met with a strange old man on the Great Plateau but I could not recall his identity. If he had been speaking with ghosts, it was no wonder nightmares plagued him almost every night. “His spirit was not at peace, then,” I whispered.

He bobbed his chin lightly. “He begged me first and foremost to save you as he could not do it himself... He was incredibly concerned for you. Then, he asked me to save the Kingdom of Hyrule.”

I looked down and my eyes began to dampen.”We departed after a silly argument. I never had a chance to make up with him. I assumed he died still disappointed in me.”

“That is not true. I could tell he loved you very much,” said Link. He stepped over to me. 

A few tears escaped from the rim of my eyes. I rubbed them away with my thumb but they continued to fall. “I wish… I wish he was still here to guide me,” I said with a slight hiccup. Link reached out and embraced me around my shoulders. I gratefully accepted his hug and sniffled into his shoulder. 

“I’ll do everything I can to help you fulfill his final wishes,” Link said into my ear. 

I nodded as my tears leaked onto the shoulder of his tunic. We stood in a silent embrace for only a minute before I stepped away. “Thank you, Link,” I said. “He really liked you, a hundred years ago… He trusted you with your duty.”

Link’s expression softened. “That’s good to hear.”

“I’m sorry I cry so much these days,” I said as I wiped my hand against my eyes.

“No. It’s been hard for me to process everything as well,” said Link. He looked away. “I’m glad to have you with me.”

My heart fluttered with his sentiment. “I am grateful to have you here as well,” I said.

He turned his head back to me and smiled. “So what shall we do next, Princess?”

I pursed my lips. “I think I am ready... To return to the castle.”

Link kneeled in a bow reserved only for the King of Hyrule—or Queen, I guess. The gesture made my heart thud in my chest as a smile pulled on my lips. “Link… you don’t need to ever bow to me. You are the Hero of Hyrule and best friend, for The Goddess’s sake, not just my Appointed Knight anymore.”

He blinked a few times and I wondered if I’d said something odd. “Yes, of course, Zel,” he said.

“Though I do have one more request of you,” I declared.

He tilted his head. “Request?”

“Yes,” I said with a nod.

“Okay… what is it?”

“Well, I am absolutely  _ sick _ of all this hair,” I complained, flinging my tangled mess of hair over my shoulders. “I wish to cut it.”

Link reached his hand onto his sword hilt with a smirk. “That can be arranged.”

Fortunately, Link was only joking about using his sword, and he had a small knife on hand that proved to be a significantly less… barbaric tool for cutting hair. I sat down and Link seated himself behind me as he got to work. I briefly wondered if he had ever cut hair before. He seemed to be confident in what he was doing though. He snipped the ends above my shoulders, slightly shorter than the length he kept his own. It took him quite a while as he was trying his best to cut as evenly as possible. When the majority of the weight finally fell away, I sighed in relief. 

My head felt so light.

“Your head wound seems to have begun healing already, thanks to the elixir and lotion,” Link commented as he combed through my shortened hair with his fingers to get the excess loose strands out. 

I thought he was finished but he began tying my signature braid back into my hair. I felt my cheeks heat up. “I had no idea you could braid,” I said.

“Hair, rope… same method,” He said. “I’ve watched you do it so many times by now to know how you like it.” The proudness in his tone flustered me. 

I flicked the ends of my hair and shook my head, feeling the strands fall lightly around my face. It felt so  _ good _ to finally be rid of the extra weight. I pulled out the Sheikah Slate and used the camera to look at my new cut. Link put his chin on my shoulder and stuck his tongue out playfully when I snapped a photo of us. “Thank you,” I said. “It’s great.” 

“No problem. It looks cute too,” said Link as he stood up and dusted the excess hair off the nearby ledge and into the abyss below. I felt my face heat up. 

“How did you learn to cut hair?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Some kind of motor instinct I have... Maybe I did it for my sister.”

My heart sunk for him. His sister. I’d met her a few times at formal castle events that the royal guard’s family members could attend. She was charming and much more outgoing than he had ever been, though I supposed she didn’t have the weight of the world on her shoulders. His words implied he still couldn’t remember her well which broke my heart for both of them. She very likely died in Castle Town during the calamity. I had no idea if Link was ready to discuss the fate of his own family.

The rest of the evening was largely uneventful as I had no intention of investigating any of the trial equipment in the shrine. Link decided to go out in the rain and forage for food around the mountain briefly, much to my many objections. He returned after only a short time, drenched from head to toe but with a tunic bunched full of apples. It wasn’t much to eat but they would serve as our dinner. 

The hard floor of the shrine pushed against my back and I shivered against the cold surface when I attempted to go to sleep. Link seemed to be having similar struggles as he sat against the wall near me. I flicked my head over towards him after tossing and turning a few times on the ground. His eyes met mine and he nodded as if I had asked him to do something. Without a word, he crawled over and laid down next to me. I hesitated before he looked at me expectantly, and then I rolled into his warm embrace. 

He was much more comfortable than the floor.

His hand trailed into my freshly cut hair, careful to avoid my abrasion, rubbing the back of my head in such a soothing manner that it put me to sleep almost immediately. I would only realize later that he’d picked up that calming mannerism from me. 


	10. Beauty within Ruin

_Link_

_Lines of scorched stone raked across the ground before me as powerful laser beams fired from every direction. I sprinted up the curved walkway, passed guardian turrets corrupted with the calamity’s power, and somersaulted out of the scope of a guardian skywatcher that took aim from above me. I drew my bow, knocking one of the ancient arrows I’d gotten from Robbie, and sent it flying up at the skywatcher’s eye. It exploded immediately in a flurry of raining metallic peaces. I continued my sprint up the hill as more skywatchers drew towards me with the sound of the explosion. The sanctum of the castle was only a short distance away. I had to get there before the Princess’s power was exhausted…_

_“Link… open your eyes.”_

My eyes fluttered open, and the blue light of the shrine filled my frame of view. Zelda looked down at me from where she leaned over me above, an increasingly familiar look of concern on her face. I took a deep breath, rubbing my hands over my face. My heart beat hard in my chest.

“You were having a bad dream again,” said Zelda. Her hand swept across my cheek. “What was it about this time?”

I sat up onto my forearms, and she leaned back where she kneeled beside me. “The castle,” I said, after taking a moment to let my heart return to its normal pace.

She looked away. “It was such a horrifying sight. No wonder it haunts you as well,” she whispered. 

“I’m looking forward to seeing it restored soon,” I said. 

Zelda nodded. “I am as well.”

I sat up and rubbed the back of my neck. The floor had been very uncomfortable. Something shiny in Zelda’s hands caught my eye. “What do you have there?”

She sat up straight, like a child caught stealing a piece of cake behind their mother’s back. “Oh, it’s uhm… Just the little seashell you gave me at the beach in Hateno...” She held out her hand and dropped the small white shell in my palm.

“You held onto it?” I was surprised. It was nothing special as far as seashells went—just a little scallop. I figured she had just thrown it back into the waters.

“It meant a lot to me,” she said. Her cheeks became pink as she spoke. “It… It reminds me of even the small things that I must fight to protect in this Kingdom… and it also reminds me of your generosity. I decided to keep it with me in my pouch.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” I said. I gave the shell back to her, then pulled my hair back into my usual ponytail. Never did I ever think my little gesture would impact the Princess so much. I stood, and the stiffness in my back objected to me until I leaned into a stretch. “Shall we go out and look for the horses?”

-

The early morning sun reflected off the wet grass in a shine of such brilliance that I had to shield my eyes when we emerged from the shrine. The rains had brought with them a crisp chill on the land. We wandered out of the grove beneath Satori Mountain and soon located the road. Luckily, my hunch had been correct, and we found our horses grazing nearby the Outskirt Stable. The stable hands told us they found them riderless late last night in the rain and let them shelter there, praying their riders would show up. I tried to paid them a good tip for their generosity, but when the stable owner learned our identities, he insisted it would be no cost to us as a thanks.

After a quick breakfast, we trotted around the colosseum ruins. The swamp of malice that once blocked its entrance had dissipated. I wondered if that malice had spawned there due to the herd of incredibly violent monsters that lived inside. It would align with the Yiga Clan’s beliefs about malice appearing near evil events. Soon, we arrived at the ruins of Hyrule Garrison, and Zelda wished to stop. 

“It is still shocking to see the places I was once so familiar with… completely obliterated without restraint,” she said. She stepped over a pile of rubble and placed her hand against a ruined corner that had survived the blasts.

I scanned the ruins, alert for any monsters squatting amongst them. The outlines in the ground of many buildings and walls were still visible through crumbling foundations that had weathered the blasts of the guardians’ relentless assault. A flash of blue sprouting up in the grass in one of the ruins caught my eye. It was a silent princess flower. “Look, Zel,” I said as I pointed to it. 

We carefully stepped over the ruined foundation walls to the flower. Zelda leaned down and cradled its delicate petals in her hands, though she did not pick it up from the ground. She sighed. “It amazes me that such a beautiful little thing has managed to grow amongst all this destruction.” 

I nodded, and a cool wind swirled around us. “It is a sign that we can also rebuild,” I said.

She smiled up at me before standing up. “That’s very poetic, Link.”

A wind fluttered through the tall grasses and birds chirped as the tattered banner flapped overhead us. It was so peaceful here. One would never know a horrific event once came to pass if it weren’t for the ruins littering the open field and the damaged castle in the distance. Yet, we were surrounded by incredible mountains, sparkling rivers, and lush forests that continued to thrive despite everything. From Central Hyrule, one could see almost all of the Kingdom’s amazing landscapes. As I looked around us, I suddenly felt overcome with emotion. “Even without memories of my life growing up here, I managed to fall in love with this beautiful land all over again. If nature can recover from this calamity, so can we.”

Zelda looked out at the field around us. “Indeed,” she said. 

We rode across the wide open grassland of Hyrule Field and through the ruins of Mabe Village, passing by the carcasses of several guardian stalkers that had deactivated upon the defeat of Calamity Ganon. I wondered if any travelers had braved approaching them yet to start scavenging for their highly valuable mechanical parts.

It was evening when we arrived in the ruins of castle town. We came upon a cluster of tents in the center square. Different designs annointed the tops of the tents with the symbols of different tribes. Gorons carried huge blocks of masonry into neat piles as they cleared out the ruins nearby. Rito perched on the ruined walls above, and Zora patrolled the streets. Several older Zora members were working on restoring the ruined fountain in the center of town. Even a few Gerudo had already made it into the town.

A hylian girl was the first to notice our arrival. “They’re back! The Princess and Hero have returned!” She yelled. Several citizens poked their heads out of their tents. They began cheering, welcoming us back as we dismounted the horses. They bowed down on their knees to Zelda.

“Thank you, all,” said Zelda. A smile stretched across her face, though I sensed a touch of nervousness in her voice. “We’ve returned to check in on the state of the castle.”

“The castle has been stabilized of debri and the passages are clear now, Your Highness,” said a Goron amongst the crowd, who I immediately recognized as Yunobo.

Zelda nodded. “Thank you. We will return to all of you here after our business is in order.”

“Princess, what are your plans for us?” Another Hylian traveler in the crowd asked.

Zelda looked at her boots, then back to the crowd. Her voice was slightly more confident this time. “We are rebuilding the society we once called home. I call on all and anyone who wishes to assist to join me in this great effort.”

Several citizens cheered with their support. Zelda smiled. “Additionally, I _would_ like to hold a celebration of the new beginning here in the castle, once it is safe, for all who wish to come.”

I wondered if she had made that decision at that moment or if she had been inspired by our party with the Gerudo. Surely, it would take quite a long time to get the castle ready for any type of formal event once again.

“Princess Zelda!”

Purah raced up from the castle gates and through the crowd to meet us. Apparently, she didn’t care anymore if others saw her childlike appearance. Symin followed behind her at a slightly slower pace.

“Hello, Purah!” Zelda said, stepping forward to greet her friend.

“Princess… Oh, uh, did you change your hair? It looks so cute!” said Purah. She nodded at me in greeting. “Hey, Linky. Not sure if you did anything to yours, but I guess it looks good, as usual.” 

“We received your message,” said Zelda. “We left at once...though we were sidetracked.”

“I had no idea you were way out in Gerudo Town, so it took the messenger quite a while to ask around and find you I guess,” said Purah, shrugging her shoulders. “Now come, see what we’ve found inside!”

We followed Purah as she skipped up to the castle entrance. Zelda took a deep breath from beside me as we entered the outer gate. She had been stuck inside this structure for a hundred years fighting off Ganon. I did not blame her for not wanting to return yet. The last time I was here, I too almost died.

The Gorons had cleared the main entrance of the collapsed debri in the Great Hall, and it was finally navigable. Inside, the stone walls were mostly intact but most remains of furniture were crushed beneath the collapsed stone. Broken ceramic of the castle’s decorative vases littered the floor but the Gorons had at least swept a clean path for us to walk safely. 

Purah and Symin continued across the hall, but Zelda paused to look up at the remains of a portrait of her and her parents that once hung proudly in the Great Hall. Its canvas was torn to shreds, the paint faded, and burn marks from the fires of the calamity charred what hadn’t been ripped away. The Calamity wanted to thoroughly erase all traces the Royal Famiily. Zelda’s eyes glinted, and I feared she would break down at that moment.

“Come on, Princess! We’re losing daylight!” Purah called from the top of the staircase across the hall, completely oblivious to the Princess’s quiet mourning.

I reached out hesitantly with my hand and brushed the back of hers to comfort her. Her eyes darted down for a moment. To my relief, she blinked away her tears before she silently laced her fingers into mine. “Coming, Purah,” she called. Her voice echoed around the tall ceiling.

I gave her hand a light squeeze as we continued up through the castle. We climbed the stairs and emerged into a corridor that led past the dining hall. A shiver ran down my spine as I recalled the monsters and malice I’d encountered here on my previous visit. Zelda seemed to notice my discomfort and squeezed my hand back as we followed Purah

We could do this. Together.

We passed into a hall with an enormous hole blown into it that looked down into the Sheikah observatory below. The floor and red walls were scorched and broken in places from my battle with Calamity Ganon. Robbie was inside, tinkering on a large device on the edge of the room that I hadn’t noticed during my battle. “That is the mainframe control system for the Sheikah Tower network. Robbie is still trying to repair it. I’d like to play with its teleportation functionality once it is done,” said Purah.

Robbie looked up at the sound of Purah’s voice.”Princess! Wahh! Great to see you, after all these years...”

Zelda waved down at the Sheikah. “Hello, Robbie. Wonderful to finally see you in person again.”

“And Link, glad to see you made it out in one piece. Hopefully my weapons came in handy,” Robbie called up to me, adjusting his spectacles. 

I nodded. “Very much. Hyrule owes much of this victory to your research on the weapons.”

Robbie beamed, happy with this news. Purah motioned us to continue along the corridor. “We can go see Robbie later. Princess, there’s something we just found while cleaning the residential quarters that we wanted to show you…”

We climbed up the winding spiral staircase and into a corridor that was blocked by fallen debri in my previous visit. A few sheikah were sorting things that could be salvaged into crates. We entered into a large room: the bedchamber of the King and Queen. The large arched windows were missing most of the glass panes, and a thick layer of dust covered the entire room. The large bed was still present, though its posters were collapsed from fallen roof debri. Purah led us over to a wardrobe in the corner that seemed miraculously unharmed besides the layer of dust covering it. She hopped up and pulled the handle open. Inside were many garments. 

Zelda’s eyes widened as she pulled on the fabric of a dress hanging inside. “These… These were my mother’s gowns…”

Purah nodded. “Can you believe they survived the calamity? When one of the Sheikah here told me, I thought you’d be so excited to see them when you came back!”

Zelda blinked away tears. I held a hand to her shoulder. “Thank you, Purah.”

“More beauty that persevered amongst the destruction,” I whispered.


	11. Truth and Lies

_ Link _

Zelda finally let herself cry once we reached her old bedroom. Purah realized she might need some time to herself and excused herself to the observatory to work more with Robbie. The roof of Zelda’s room had caved in, and the wall was blown out to the elements outside. Evidence of monsters inhabiting the room were everywhere. Her old bed was beyond salvageable. Some of her clothes left in the wardrobe seemed somewhat salvageable which was encouraging, and her desk was still entirely intact somehow. She sat down at it and let herself sob into its surface. I stood beside her and let her process the emotions.

After a while, her sobs began to slow. The sun was beginning to set, and the orange light of the evening filled the space. The shadow of the tower outside cast through the hole in the wall. I glanced up to it. “Zel, how about we go up to your study? Maybe some of your research is still there.”

Zelda stood from the chair and nodded. “Yes,” she said through sniffles. “That would be nice.”

Since the wall to the terrace outside was already blown out, I helped Zelda crawl over the ruined facade and we scaled the steps on the terrace outside that led up to her private tower. She opened the door and walked inside. 

“It’s just as I left it…” She mumbled as we entered the small room. She went over to her desk. It was littered in papers, books, and gadgets she’d been tinkering with as she researched the ancient technology. She stared at her notes with a frown on her face.

_ Had it all really been for nothing?  _ I knew those were the thoughts on her mind.

Something small and round on the desk caught my eye. I recognized it. “You have an Ancient Shield?” I asked, pointing to the disc. 

She blinked. “A shield?”

I nodded, picking up the disc. I held it out in front of me and placed my thumb on a button on the back. “Throw that box at me.” I said.

“What??” Zelda narrowed her eyes at my ridiculous request.

“Just do it.”

She leaned down and picked up a wooden box at the ground. After hesitating, she lifted it over her head and chucked it at me. Within a second, a brilliant blue glow filled the room as a large, round shield of energy unfurled from the small disk. The box bounced off the shield and fell to the floor. Zelda gasped in awe as I retracted the shield back into the disc. “I… I never knew what that was... My mother and I found it when we were out exploring once.”

“Maybe you should carry it with you now,” I said with a small smile as I handed it back to her. “What was in that box, anyways? It was completely empty.”

“I… I don’t quite recall,” she said. She leaned over and picked it up. Inside was a piece of paper. I stepped closer to her and poked my head over her shoulder to look. It was a hand-drawn blueprint for an egg-shaped device of some kind. 

“Hmmm… must have been one of your designs,” I said.

Her eyes widened all of a sudden. “This was for a small Guardian I designed with my mother as a child…”

I blinked. “You know how to make  _ Guardians _ ?”

She nodded as she folded up the drawing and placed it in her pouch. “I guess it must have corrupted along with the other guardians during the calamity. I have no idea where it would have gone otherwise...”

I furrowed my brow as I tried to remember the small guardian’s presence. It seemed vaguely familiar. Maybe, back when I first met her, I’d seen it scuttling around behind her...

“My father confiscated it from me when I was young so I could focus more on unlocking my power. He saw my tinkering as a distraction from my duty,” Zelda whispered. “It was a terrible day for me when he took it away. The fortune teller had visited the very same day and delivered the news of the prophecy on us.”

“The signs of a resurrection of Calamity Ganon are clear. The power to oppose it lies dormant beneath the ground,” said a deep voice behind us.

I pivoted around to face our unexpected guest. A chill clawed up into my gut when I recognized the older man standing in the doorway. “You…” I whispered.

It was Astor. The strange, Gerudo-cloaked man I had met at the Rito Stable. The evening light cast half his face in shadow but the dark paint around his eyes still gave him a strange, skeletal-like appearance.

Zelda placed a hand on her chest. “Apologies, but who are you? And what are you doing up here in my private study?”

Astor chuckled as he leaned against the door frame. “You don’t remember me? I delivered those very same words to your father over a hundred years ago.”

“You are… the fortune teller?” Zelda breathed. ”You... survived the Great Calamity?”

He smirked. “I did, though, Calamity Ganon only spared me because I’d made his job a little easier.”

I furrowed my brow.  _ Easier? How…? _

Zelda gasped, covering her mouth as she fell to her knees in despair. “You… you  _ knew? ... _ And you didn’t warn us?”

I blinked, finally understanding what Zelda meant. This fortune teller saw the future, and he must have known the Divine Beasts and the Guardians would corrupt against the Kingdom. Yet, he still gave advice to excavate the land for the solution below the ground.

He, alone, could have been the reason we failed.

Anger filled my veins. I rushed forward, grabbing the Seer by his cloak, and pinned the man against the door frame. Dust clouded around us with the impact. I drew the Master Sword and held it to his neck as I shoved his shoulder against the wall with my free hand. Zelda gasped in shock at my action. “ _ Why?  _ Why would you lead us to a fortune of doom?” I demanded to know.

His pale lips curved into an amused smile. I tightened my grip as I pushed my knuckles harder against him. He spoke. “I foresaw the vision of the Great Calamity followed by your death in the Princess’s arms due to her inability to access her sacred power. It was a loss no matter what.”

“Liar,” I accused, pressing harder on him with my knuckle. “I was mortally wounded only because of the Guardians’ betrayal.”

“Calamity Ganon struck you with the deadly wound himself, if I remember correctly,” said the Seer. I glared at him and he sneered. “This was an event that could not be changed. I foresaw this inevitable loss and decided to take the stronger side.”

“So you lied to us? You made up a prophecy?” Zelda cried. “My father trusted your advice!”

“Seers cannot speak false words on their tongues when asked to deliver prophecies. Unfortunately, that is the trade-off with receiving the divine gift,” said Astor. “It is true that the power to oppose the Calamity lies underground. I did not speak falsely.”

Zelda blinked at this revelation. “So… there  _ is _ still something for us to find…”

I frowned. “Leaving out important information is just the same as lying.”

Astor laughed. “Nobody has ever been able to find the real solution.”

“Why would you support the Calamity’s revival, then? You betrayed the Kingdom of Hyrule!” I snarled.

He shook his head. “With my powers, I could foresee endless revivals of the Calamity far into the future. It was tiring, not just for me but for all Seers who can see such events. I wished to end the endless cycle once and for all, and—seeing as it was always impossible for the Hero and Princess to completely defeat the Calamity each time—I knew that the Calamity was the stronger force to join.”

“So you would rather Ganon win once and for all and destroy the Kingdom than wait for any chance for his final defeat in the future?” Zelda whispered.

He nodded. “The Great Calamity always wins in the end! It cannot be sealed!”

“You’re wrong!” Zelda yelled. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw that she’d risen to her feet. “We can seal the Demon Curse away forever. There  _ must _ be a way!”

“My Lord Ganon will return once again, once we summon enough malice to trigger the next Great Calamity! It is foreseen! You must give in to his endless power!” Astor yelled.

I frowned. “As long as we have the force of love on our side, we cannot lose to any challenge, even if it takes a hundred years of work.”

Astor growled. “Only I, who Calamity Ganon himself spared for this exact purpose, can lead you as Hyrule’s new king. My Yiga Clan servants may have failed to execute my task, but I can still offer the Blood Sacrifice of the Hero and Princess to Calamity Ganon!”

He kicked me in the gut and I stumbled over, which gave him an opening to escape my grip. He lunged towards me. 

“No!” Zelda yelled. 

She held up her hands and a golden flash illuminated the room. The shock wave from the energy rumbled against the books and vials on the shelves and shoved me up against the wall. Some of the books fell from the shelves above and sprawled on the floor.

The Seer had completely disappeared.

I gasped for my breath as I processed what happened. “Zel…”

“That was…my power…” She whispered, catching her own breath as she stared at the back of her outstretched hand.

“So... it’s not gone?” I asked, sheathing my sword.

“Apparently it has been rekindled,” she said. The golden symbol of the Trifoce glowed on the back of her hand briefly before fading away. She lowered her hand as I stepped over to her. She looked up at me, and threw her arms over my shoulders. She shook against me.

“It’s alright, he’s gone now…” I said into her shoulder.

“I can’t believe it… We were purposely led astray…” She said flatly before she pulled away, staring at the floor where Astor had stood. I moved to pick up the fallen books and began reshelving them. Considering the current state of the rest of the castle, it was probably frivolous to care about a few fallen books. But I knew how much Zelda’s personal study meant to her.

“Did you mean that, Link?” Zelda asked after a few minutes. 

“Mean, what?” I asked, turning to her as I shelved the final book.

“We will always win because ‘we have the force of love on our side’…?”

“Oh, you heard that… I guess it was a little cheesy...”

“Link…” She stepped closer to me and tilted her head.

“Of course I meant it, my Princess,” I hardened my expression as I considered my next words. “Just as I fell in love with Hyrule all over again after my awakening … I also rediscovered another love that I held deep within my soul.”

I wondered if I’d crossed the unspoken yet progressively thinner line we’d kept between us lately. Before I had a chance to apologize for speaking my feelings too far, she grabbed my cheeks firmly and her lips collided into mine. 

Sure, I’d wondered about what actually kissing her would be like before, but I never thought there was a real possibility it would actually happen one day. However, the real thing was much better than anything I could possibly ever imagine. Her lips were soft and warm as they pressed into mine. I dared to wrap my arms around her shoulders and pulled us closer together as I deepened the kiss just a little. I felt her lips smile—a strange sensation—and she giggled.

When we finally parted, I continued to hold her close to me. She leaned into my shoulder, and I felt her tension relaxing. “I had been waiting so long…Unsure if you actually felt the same...” Zelda whispered. 

“Zel…”

We stood in each other’s arms for a long time, until the sunset filled the tower with brilliant shades of red and orange.


	12. The Hero's Secret

_Zelda_

It took several months to get the castle’s Great Hall in a suitable state for guests. The castle repairs still weren’t complete, and many areas were quite a mess, but the assistance from people all over the land sped up the process. Link and I traveled back and forth between the castle, his house in Hateno, and Kakariko Village a few times when I felt the need to get away from the construction chaos.

Soon, the Great Hall was adorned with luxurious Gerudo-woven fabrics on the floors and walls. The Zoras rebuilt the destroyed aqueduct connections and got the many fountains working again. The Gorons enthusiastically helped clean up the rubble and Hylian carpenters began the reconstruction of Castle Town. Travelers of all races and from every corner of Hyrule brought in food and materials to aid in the massive reconstruction efforts. The effort was beyond anything I could have imagined.

The Rito began training a small army of volunteers who wished to join the defensive forces. I appointed Link as their Commander since he retained some memories of how the Hyrulean Army functioned in the past. 

Finally, I felt the castle was prepared enough to host the grand celebration I envisioned to formalize the beginning of the new kingdom, and I called for the first royal ball in over a hundred years. It was to be open to every citizen in the Kingdom who was willing and able to come.

Impa and Paya traveled to the castle before the ball to help with preparations. However, there weren’t many to make since so many people were already present. Instead, they joined me in my personal bedroom as I attempted to select a gown from my mother’s collection that we had moved into my now-cleaned up bedchamber. It would be my first big public appearance as The New Hyrule’s Crown Princess so I wanted to pay tribute to my parents somehow. That, and I had no surviving gowns in a state where I could wear them due to the previous monster infestation in my room. 

“What about this one?” Paya asked, pulling out a very sophisticated white dress with golden accents.

“That… might be a bridal gown,” I said with a laugh.

“I’m sure Link would love to see you in that any day now,” said Impa. 

Paya scoffed as my cheeks burned with the comment. Impa cackled at my reaction. “GRANDMOTHER! You’re embarrassing the Princess! A-and me!” Paya said.

Nobody, not even Impa, knew about my little kiss with Link, but I knew there were growing suspicions about our possible relationship amongst the people working on the castle. Link had been tentatively staying in the knight’s training chamber in the castle until we could prepare a more proper bedchamber for him but he rarely left my side otherwise. Impa had always teased me about liking Link in the past, but since I’d _actually_ kissed him now... The tease flustered me more than usual. 

We cycled through a few more gowns before I selected a dark blue strapless ball gown adorned with the crest of Hyrule in white at the bottom of its skirt. I had no memory of my mother ever wearing the gown, so it must have been something she wore when she was much younger. Paya and Impa helped me into the dress and adjusted the corset in the middle so it would fit me. Fortunately, my mother and I wore similar sized clothing so it fit quite nicely. Paya tied half of my hair back and I retained my signature braid. It was a simple look but it would do, and this celebration was not about extravagant appearances at all, given the current state of the Kingdom.

When I was finally ready, Impa opened the door and Paya helped me with the train of my gown down the steps. Link waited to escort us in the corridor below. He wore a restored uniform, found somewhere in the castle, that the captains of the Royal Guard wore a hundred years ago. It was adorned with a blue cape that the Gerudo fabric weavers made for him to commemorate his role as the Hero. It fell in graceful folds beneath the Master Sword over his shoulder. His hair hung in loose strands around his ears. He looked quite dashing. 

“Princess,” He greeted as he offered me his forearm. His eyes trailed over the length of my dress. “You look beautiful,” he said in a low voice.

I hooked my hand around his arm and smiled. “Thank you, Link. You look handsome in your new cape.”

Link held his head proudly at my compliment. Two Sheikah opened the large double doors to the balcony overlooking the Great Hall for us. Below, the room was already crowded with attendees. All of the sconces and the fireplace were lit. Food filled tables occupied the far wall. They cheered as we emerged from the doorway. 

“The Princess and Hero have arrived,” announced Purah through some sort of voice magnification system over the crowd. 

I scanned over the crowd and found many familiar faces. Riju, Teba, Yunobo, and Prince Sidon were all in attendance along with many of their guard members and members of each tribe. Several Hylians from Hateno, Lurelin, and the small settlements across Hyrule who had received word of the castle’s reconstruction were also in attendance. Sheikah who had not traveled to the castle before joined the celebration. I recognized a few of the families who ran the stable network. Everyone clapped joyfully at our arrival.

“Thank you, everyone,” I said as I looked out onto the crowd. Purah handed me the device—a microphone—and I spoke into it. “I want to thank all of you for coming tonight. This is the first celebratory event of our kingdom in over a hundred years, now.”

The crowd fell quiet as I spoke. I paused before continuing. “Though we’ve entered a time of peace, we have so much still to do to rebuild, and it requires everyone’s help. I want this Kingdom to flourish, and make all those we lost a hundred years ago in the Calamity proud of where it goes.”

Robbie and Purah clapped from behind me which caused a wave of applause in the crowd. “Additionally,” I said. “I will do everything in my power to best serve all of you as your Princess. I will also be personally working on a quest to uncover the knowledge necessary to prevent the cycle of future calamities. I cannot make any promises, but this is my new mission.”

The crowd was silent at this proposal. I worried I’d scared or baffled them with this knowledge, but then a small Zora child called out to me. “Thank you for everything, Princess Zelda! And Link the Hero of Hyrule!” The crowd erupted in cheers. Link nodded at the crowd in response and held up the Master Sword, causing another eruption of cheers.

“Now, who’s ready to PARTYYYY?” Robbie yelled out from behind me, taking me a bit off guard.

I smiled and held up my hand towards our special musician of honor, Kass the Rito Bard, and he began playing a joyful waltz on his accordion. The guests began to mingle and dance amongst themselves. Impa seated herself in a chair on the balcony to watch the dancing with a smile on her face as Link and I descended the stairs together to join the crowd. Paya, Robbie, and Purah followed us.

“May I have this dance?” Link asked me with a bow.

I smiled. “Of course, but do you even have a memory of how to waltz?”

“Hopefully, or we’ll find out very quickly,” he said with a wide grin. I rolled my eyes but stepped towards him to begin the dance.

Luckily, Link seemed to remember the proper step and we waltzed without any tripping incidents. We floated around the room, attracting much attention and giggling from the partygoers. I didn’t mind their looks. I could not remember a time where I danced in the castle, free of any stresses about training for the impending Calamity. 

I stared into Link’s face, and it was almost as if I had traveled back in time to the first time we danced here, though under very different circumstances. Previously, he’d been so quiet, and our dance was more of a ritualistic show of formality than anything else. Now, his soft gaze held mine as we swayed, completely trusting in each other’s arms. I was at ease dancing with him, and our movements were fluid compared with the rigid steps we’d taken together in the distant past.

Link spoke after a few minutes. “My family always enjoyed the castle’s parties a hundred years ago.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You remember?”

He nodded. “More memories have started coming back to me since being in the castle... My sister and mother used to talk for weeks after the events. My father, well, he had to be at them. He passed away in battle before I even drew the Master Sword, so he never got to see me attend one as your Appointed Knight.”

I looked down. “I’m sorry they are no longer with us, Link.” He simply nodded in response.

Link and I danced for quite a while to the upbeat waltz before the next song began and I decided to take a rest. I returned to the balcony to accompany Impa, and we watched over the festivities together. Impa chuckled when we witnessed Purah shove Paya over to Link, and he extended a hand to ask her for a dance. She nodded her head bashfully and they began spinning around the floor.

“She has a huge crush on him, you know,” Impa said as she leaned over to me. “Not that she would ever dare to get in your way…”

_“Impa!”_ I scoffed, and my old Sheikah friend cackled. 

After only just a few minutes of dancing, a very flustered Paya excused herself and returned up to the balcony with us. Her face was redder than the new banners hanging behind us on the wall.

“Paya, you’ve left Link all alone down there! What’s wrong?” Impa scolded her granddaughter, though I knew her well enough to know that she was teasing.

“I-I’m sorry, Grandmother!” Paya said, covering her face. “I just… He and Princess Zelda seemed so happy dancing together before... I didn’t want to take away too much of their time…”

I giggled. “It’s fine, Paya. Impa and I were having fun up here watching you as well. Come sit with us.”

“Y-yes, Your Highness,” said Paya with a quick nod before she sat down beside Impa.

The party’s music was lovely. In fact, Kass’s musical style was strangely familiar. I recalled our court poet who played the accordion a hundred years ago. He was a Sheikah boy who often performed at events for me and my father. I briefly wondered what had ever happened to him. 

Soon, I returned to the floor and found Link near the food table. He’d stuffed an entire fruit skewer into his mouth right before I poked his shoulder. He pulled me out onto the floor before he even swallowed.

Fortunately, the current song’s tempo was a pace that would not tire me out rapidly. Kass began singing along with the melody, which was apparently a piece about the Calamity. His Rito voice rang out over us. “The princess’s love for her fallen knight awakens her power, And within the castle the Calamity is forced to cower…” sang Kass.

I almost tripped on my own steps in embarrassment. My cheeks burned as I snapped my attention to our bard and then back to Link. _Had people been going around shouting lyrics about my personal feelings for the past hundred years?_

“Everything alright, Zel?” Link asked me in a voice just audible over the music.

“Y-yes, everything is wonderful, Link,” I said, looking down to avoid his gaze. Link had definitely heard the lyrics clearly since Kass’s singing was so clear. _What... would he think?_

“This is quite the timely song,” I said, in an attempt to gauge if Link had noticed the lyric.

Link nodded, though his expression was unchanged. “Kass taught me it just before I left for the castle.”

Kass continued his last lyrics in the final phrase. “The hero, the princess—hand in hand—Must bring the light back to this land...”

I looked up into Link’s face. “You…. you heard all these lyrics even before fighting Ganon?”

“Yep.”

“ _Every_...one?” I questioned. He nodded, and I saw the hint of a smirk pull up on his lips.

He... _knew?_

“We… need to talk,” I said. I grabbed his hand and tugged him towards the closest door to us. He didn’t resist, and let me pull him away. We successfully slipped out of the Great Hall and into the quiet corridor outside. I led him up the ramp until we arrived at the castle’s library. It was technically still off-limits as its repairs were incomplete. Regardless, I had been making a habit of combing through the bookshelves’ surviving texts for information about the origins of malice since my arrival at the castle.

I pulled the doors of the library shut behind us, leaving us with only the silence of the dim room as our company. I flipped around to face him and pointed a finger at him accusingly. “So… you knew _all along_ how my powers unlocked?”

He tilted his head innocently and folded his arms. “Well, I was there, even if barely alive, when it happened…”

I pursed my lips. “I meant, in relation to the song lyrics…”

“Oh,” Link conceded. He slowly nodded. “Yes... I knew about your feelings..”

I took a few steps in front of the tall shelf along the wall. _Just how many people walking about Hyrule had heard about my private feelings for Link by now?_

“Have those feelings...changed?” Link asked as he strode a step closer to me.

I snapped my head up towards him. “Wh-what? No, of course not, I—“

My words cut off when he pressed his lips into mine in such an unexpectedly sensuous manner that I stepped back in surprise and my elbows rattled into the bookshelf behind me. His mouth was sprinkled with the taste of sugar from the fruit he’d just enjoyed a few minutes earlier. I lifted my hands to cup his face and bring him closer to enjoy even more of his sweetness. In response, he pushed himself even closer, cornering me against the bookcase. His hands found a resting place on my waist as the kiss grew into something much more passionate. 

Something from the tallest shelves toppled down next to us, snapping us back to our senses. I flinched and shielded my head into his shoulder in reflex. 

“It was just a few books, Zel,” he mumbled into my ear before placing a soft kiss on my jawline.

“Ah, yes,” I said absently, stepping away from him as I caught my breath, My face burned from the intensity of the kissing session. I wished so badly to continue, but I knew we needed to stop before things escalated too far out of reasonable control. 

“I didn’t let you finish before, I’m sorry,” said Link. 

I clasped my hands in front of me. “The song’s lyrics… They are indeed the truth, Link... Why didn’t you tell me you knew before?”

His gaze fell to the floor but a remorseful smile touched his lips. “I worried you wouldn’t love me anymore, as you said I changed so much... So, I never brought it up in case you changed your mind.”

I held a hand to my chest. “I appreciate that, Link. But the person I fell in love with is still here within you. In fact, you’re even _better_ now than before, if I can admit that.”

He responded by gifting me with another passionate kiss. When he finally pulled away, I leaned against him in a tight embrace.

“Please never leave my side,” I said in a muffled voice into his shoulder. “That’s an order, now.”

“I thought you released me,” He joked with a chuckle as he squeezed me lightly. “But… I promise you, I won’t.”

“We should probably get back to the party before Impa gets more suspicious,” I mumbled after a few minutes of silent embrace. He nodded and released me.

Before leaving, I knelt down and picked up the fallen books. The title of one of them caught my eyes: “The Ancient Curse and the Zonai.” I flipped it open in curiosity.

There was a whole section about malice.

I blinked. _Was this a new lead?_

“Zel?” Link asked.

I flicked my head up. “Yes, I am coming…” I said. I placed the book on an easily accessible space on the shelf and followed Link out the door. Surely, I would return tomorrow morning to read it.

But for now, it was just me, Link, and the celebration of the new Kingdom.

_Our_...new Kingdom. 

# EPILOGUE

* * *

I held my torch up to the hieroglyphics on the walls of the dungeon Link and I explored. We’d been traveling through caverns for quite some time now, exploring for artifacts. Further research in the books in the castle’s library had put us on a lead towards the location of several ancient temples scattered throughout Hyrule. 

As Castle Town began its reconstruction process, Link and I decided to go on a research expedition around the land, this time in the Faron region, to look for more information on the mysterious Zonai civilization. The drawings we found on the wall here were quite different than any I’d documented previously. It was almost as if they were a warning to something that was held deeper in this place.

_Had we… finally found what we’d been searching for?_

We ventured deeper into the cave, and the beast we’d brought along to pack our belongings upon began to grow more wary of continuing. Finally, it outright refused to move forward across a bridge even with Link and I pushing it, so Link and I decided to continue on foot.

Finally, we descended into a strange chamber. A gust of cold wind erupted when Link pushed away the stone blocking its door. Inside, a pulsing green light met us. We crept into the doorway, and the Master Sword pulsed with a soft light. Another warning.

“Should we turn back for reinforcements?” Link whispered, as we peered down the tunnel before us. The odd green light shone from the far side.

I shook my head. “Not yet. I want to see what we’ve found.”

We emerged from the tunnel into a wide open chamber. I gasped at the sight before us. A spiraling green energy circled over some sort of magical hand that pushed against a large figure.

It was a corpse.

I swallowed as I narrowed my eyes. Clouds of malice seeped from the corpse’s body and floated up towards the land of Hyrule above us.

_Ganondorf._

“It was all true…” I whispered. Link nodded as he stepped closer to my side.

That was when we heard its heartbeat.

The beast was alive.

Link took my hand and clutched the hilt of his sword.

“Let’s do this.”

  
.

.

.

.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you so much for reading and making it to the end! I'm really excited about the sequel to BotW and wanted to write something to connect the games together in my mind... with a Zelink spin of course! It was fun piecing together some of my favorite tropes and theories about malice and where the sequel to Botw could lead! This fic was written in early 2021, when we didn't know anything about the Botw sequel besides the very first teaser trailer, so if you're reading this far into the future and anything is really off compared to the actual game's release...that is why lol. This was my first dive into the Botw world so hopefully you have enjoyed! It's also been a few years since I wrote a fanfic so it was fun to make one again. :)
> 
> Until next time...
> 
> ~Missa


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